From 2012.igem.org

Attributions

Many thanks to all those who helped us, advised us and encouraged us over the summer !

The team

The team is composed of a mix of students, from L2 (2nd year after baccalaureate) to M2 (5th year after baccalaureate). We worked together from mid june to the end of september, some full time, some part time. More details can be found on the team page.

Funding and administrative management

The team did most of the fundraising work, creating a sponsoring file, contacting potential sponsors and presenting the project. We managed the money ourselves, through Genopole and through a "1901 law" association. Genopole supported our project, paying inscription and jamboree participation fees, as well as donating 5000 euros towards the project. Evry university contributed 7200 euros. Sanofi donated 15 000 euros, and the French embassy in the United States donated 1500 euros. Our other sponsors helped us by providing discounts or free samples.

Many people at iSSB helped us securing funding and manage the team, notably Jean-Loup Faulon with the Sanofi funding, Dominique Zeliszewski with the sponsoring file preparation and team organisation, Joan Hérisson with setting up the lab, Maelle Cochennec who managed the money we kept at Genopole. Our work would also not have been possible without the help of Sylvie Bobelet and Bernadette Lauret, who solved so many problems the team encountered over the summer. Our supervisor Thomas Landrain was very important to the success of the team, as he brought several important members to the team, he advised us with Nicolas Pollet a lot on the strategic design of our scientific project and helped organizing the human practices in coordination with La Paillasse. Our supervisor Alfonso Jaramillo encouraged us to launch the team and opened his lab to the team.

Cloning

All cloning work was done by the team in Institute of Systems & Synthetic Biology, Evry. Supervisors Thomas Landrain and Andrew Tolonen gave advice on cloning strategy throughout the project.

Animal work

Adult frogs are kept in the animal house shared between the Metamorphosys team of iSSB and Watchfrog (a company). The adult frogs were handled by Aurore Thelie from Nicolas Pollet's team (for HCG injection, egg and sperm recovery). For the auxin toxicity tests, auxin penetration experiments and the E. coli to Xenopus communication devices, the fertilised eggs were provided by the Metamophosys team of the iSSB. For all tests of biobricks in Xenopus , the team was provided with unfertilised eggs and sperm, and in vitro fertilisation and DNA injection were done by team members under the supervision of Nicolas Pollet. Eggs were sorted and kept and analysed by the team, in the Metamorphosys labs.

Microscopy

Most microscopy photos were taken in the Metamorphosys labs by the team, with the help and supervision of Nicolas Pollet, Aurore Thélie and Léna Vouillot (Postdoc and PhD student in Metamorphosys team). We would like to thank Dr. Daniel Stockholm and Genethon for letting us use LSM 510 META Laser Scanning Microscope from Zeiss, which was used with his help and that of Nicolas Pollet and Aurore Thélie for high definition fluorescence images.

HPLC

Many thanks to Damien Baud (Genoscope, Evry), who run our samples on HPLC, and to our advisor Anna who helped us analyse the spectra.

Mass spectrometry

Our advisor Anna Mlynarczyk ran our samples on LTQ-Orbitrap-XL Mass spectrometer in the LAMBE laboratory (Evry University). Thank you to Veronique Legros for advising and help using it.

T-shirt graphics

Thank you to Olivier Marquet- little brother of our Philosopher Clement- for drawing pictures of Xenopus which were printed in our t-shirts. They are really cool!