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Mid-Atlantic iGEM Meetup 2015
This year we had the amazing opportunity of hosting our first ever regional iGEM meetup at the University of Maryland. This meetup provided an opportunity for iGEM teams from around the region to come together mid-way through their projects to learn from each other, practice presenting, build relationships for future collaboration, and acquire valuable feedback from their peers. The University of Virginia, College of William and Mary, Duke University, and Rock Ridge high School were all in attendance. Each team gave a 25 minute presentation of their project including their progress, goals, and any difficulties they experience so far, followed by a Q&A period with the audience.
The College of William and Mary presented on their project of measuring the intrinsic noise generated by commonly used promoters in the iGEM registry.
Duke University presented on their project of applying dCas9 to the detection and elimination of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
The University of Virginia presented on their project of using modified E. coli to prevent postprandial hyperglycemic spikes
Our special high school guest team Rock Ridge added diversity to the meetup and presented on their project intended to help prevent and diagnose Lime Disease, a particularly salient problem in their local community of Northern Virginia.
Because of this meet-up, we were able to further collaborate in several ways with teams in attendance. we learned that Duke University was also attempting to build a DIY Thermocycler, We were able to offer some guidance to Rock Ridge High School, and had some collaboration on the Interlab Study with the College of William and Mary.
Supplementing the presentations given by each team were several guest speakers who kindly helped make the meetup a great and informative learning experience and expand the context of what we are doing with iGEM to issues beyond the lab on a national and global scale.
Special Agent Edward You of the FBI spoke about the relationship between iGEM and the future of national security as synthetic biology and DIY and community labs continue to grow with the growth of iGEM, and his work in creating a strong relationship between the biology community and the law enforcement to promote biosecurity without hindering progress.
Distinguished Professor Raymond St. Leger of the University of Maryland dept. of Entomology gave a presentation entitled "Designer Pathogens" featuring a vast array of his research group's synthetic biology projects. The main project involved a series of experiments that incorporated toxins from fungi and receptors from bacteria that would spread disease among mosquitos in Africa, combating the transmision malaria. Results proved effective enough to advance to open field trials.
