Wiki Meeting - Today we had a meeting to assess the progress on wiki.

Press Team Meeting – What Should a Press Kit Contain? The team met to discuss how we can convey our project to the Press – in particular whether it would be best to place the focus on the problem of microplastics, or the concept of an island as a solution for this problem. For the press release, and for our other forms of media, we have decided to focus on the island. Though an ‘island’ it is an illusory endpoint to our project – it is highly visible, and will foo idea that synthetic biology can be used to improve the state of the planet.

Construction Crew Meeting – Conjugation. The Construction Crew continued their search for a way to prevent conjugation. They discussed ‘geneageddon’ - a theoretical biobrick enabling bacteria to secrete nucleases, which will digest any plasmids released during cell lysis. Also, they considered using the Imperial iGEM 2011 toxin/antitoxin system to prevent gene transfer by conjugation. Our GMO would carry a toxin gene on its plasmids and an antitoxin gene on its chromosomal DNA. Upon conjugation, only the toxin gene would be delivered to the wild-type recipient, and so any conjugation between GMO and wild-type would be lethal for the wild-type. Spread of genetically modified DNA would therefore be prevented. In particular, we aim to combine these genes on a single plasmid, and therefore improve the Imperial biobrick.

Modelling meeting – Talked through conceptual problems, outlined how the models should work, and made some decisions about how to proceed

London Hackspace Meeting – Philipp, Yeping, Leonard and Martina visited the Hackspace Base at Old Street to discuss our ideas for human practice. They also had the opportunity to try some of their equipment, including running a gel in their lab.