Attributions

Within our group, we organized ourselves in smaller groups in order to use our working power efficiently. The distribution of the work was done during the first meetings but it changed during the realization of the project according to the needs. Besides the work done by our team, we needed external help to perform some techniques.

Arranging finances and finding sponsors

In order to approach our potential sponsors, we created a sponsoring proposal to send around. Bastian, Bo and Carolin took care of sending numerous E-mails and making uncountable calls to companies. At a bonding fare in Dresden Bastian, Bo, Ashwin, and Marvin contacted further companies. We had the opportunity to meet some of the interested institutions. Bastian, Bo, and Sethu attended these meetings representing the whole team. Juliane Hoth from the BIOTEC was responsible to connect our financial platform with the sponsors. Additionally Andrea Dünnebier helped us arranging the flights and accomodation to attend the Giant Jamboree.

Plasmids design

The plasmid components for the BioBricks were designed by Bastian. Plasmid design for major compartments were done by Marvin and Abhinaya. The design and modelling the vector was assisted by Dr. Jun Fu. All Biobrick plasmids were synthesized from IDT.

Simulations and structure analysis

Melanie was responsible for the bioinformatics part of the project. Therefore she characterized the interaction interface between HER2 and the affibody.

Wetlab work

1. Folding study of target protein: This subproject involved three people: Abhinaya, Ashwin, and Sethu. The target protein chosen for our project was HER2 and they made the necessary analysis to characterize its structure. Dr. Sofia Traikov from the Hoflack’s lab (BIOTEC) and Dr. Sivaraman Subramaniam from Stewart's lab (BIOTEC) helped them with the protein purification. In order to perform the circular dichroism spectroscopy we used the help of the Schlierf’s lab (B-Cube).
2. Investigation of P3 threshold for E. coli resistance: Carolin and Bastian successfully cloned the resistance E. coli needed. This subproject also involved Carl and Robert, who took care of performing the resistance experiments.
3. Conversion of BACTH into an iGEM standard and analysis of function: Bo was responsible for this subproject. He was later relieved from it by Sethu, Abhinaya, and Ashwin.
4. Set up of flow system: Carl and Robert got involved in the design of the setup for our project and subprojects.
5. Biobrick assembly: Marvin cloned the biobricks in the correct plasmid.

Wiki

Romina took care of the designing of the Wiki and organized its content. However all the information needed to fill the necessary sections was distributed between all the team members. Sethu is the artist who draw all the nice drawings for the Wiki.

Video

We came up with the idea of the video through several improvised sessions of brainstorming. Carolin, Bastian, Bo, Marvin, Sethu, Ashwin, Romina, Carl and Abhinaya recorded the scenes for the video, but the assembly was done by Bo’s sister, Joyna Heinz. Another Heinz, Avien composed the music for the occasion.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who supported us during this experience; to Prof. Thorsten Mascher, Robert Braun and Julia Bartels for their advices as iGEM veterans; to Prof. Francis Stewart’s group for providing us with lab space, materials, economical support for the flights of Frank, and for responding every question we had; to Georg Krainer for his help during the CD measurements; to Dr. Jun Fu for this help in the design of the plasmids we needed; to Prof. Thomas Bley for letting us work in his lab and supporting us financially;to PD Dr. Christian Löser for helping us with his knowledge and supplying us with his lab material; to the whole Institute for Food and Bioprocess Engineering for helping us with all our questions and lab work; to Prof. David R. Liu's group from Harvard University for their material supplies; to Parvathy Subramanian for editing the drawings and make them look better.