On week one, we focused on finding literature about the specific chemistry of silver staining. In general, we did not find any literature about the specific, molecular interactions of the silver stain dye with proteins. Many of the articles even stated that the exact mechanism of silver staining remains unknown.

This week, we researched on the scientific basis of color. More specifically, we looked into how the interaction between silver, protein and the polyacrylamide gel produces a certain color. We found that the size of silver nano-particles and the refraction of light is how we perceive different colors. We also tried to look into the electron cloud and how electron excitation produces certain wavelengths of light

This week, we also helped out Spruce Grove High School with a fun biology lab! We experimented with electrophoresis in agarose gel and visualized DNA strands from a mock crime scene. Additionally, we streaked plates with Serratia marcescens. Overall, the high school trip was a success and we got along really well with the students!

We attended the geekStarter workshop hosted by Alberta Innovates at the University of Calgary on Sunday, May 24. We presented questions about iGEM to a panel of experts. We also got one on one "speed-mentoring" with the experts as well as an exclusive group meeting with each of the four experts. Meeting the University of Lethbridge team was also quite cool!

After meeting with the experts, we decided to put the literature review on the back burner so that we could proceed with actual, physical experiments.

This week, we focused on perfecting our silver staining techniques. We are currently troubleshooting our gels because the stain comes out quite dark and with a lot of background staining.

We also started reaching out to local start-ups and companies looking for sponsorship and further funding.

Our team also started drafting versions of our wiki on this week. As we are not familiar with the mediaWiki interface, this task proved to be quite difficult. Our wiki did, however, go live later in the week. A lot of work is still necessary for the wiki because at this time, there was no content - just a template.

This week, we worked on and finalized the DNA sequences to be sent to IDT.

We also continued perfecting the silver staining techniques outlined by our principal investigator. Unfortunately, we are still experiencing difficulties in background clarity. We tried to switch out the vessels used during staining because we thought that residual silver was affecting our gels. However, even new pyrex containers did not make a difference in our final stained products. We are thinking now that the BioRAD Silver Stain Plus kit that was provided for us contains defective reagents.

Week 2 - June 8 to 12

This week, we really decided to focus our efforts into perfecting our silver stain techniques. Additionally, we divided all the tasks we have to do from now until Boston and divided them according to each of our team members strengths.

We also changed the look of our wiki this week. We opted for a more centralized design. Our new logo went live this week as well (we had to change it due to branding issues with our institution). We took inspiration from the separated protein bands in SDS-PAGE and we are quite happy with how it turned out.

On June 11th, we were joined by Ms. Linda Hoang and Blaze from our institution in a professional photo shoot for NAIT's techlife magazine. The majority of us had never been in a photoshoot before so it was quite the experience. Our mentors, Marcelo and Mattéa laughed at us at every step of the way. They also joined the shoot at the end.

Joy and Marcelo started diligently working on or PyMOL and Maya animations this week.