Attributions

Team Roles

Kieran Rustage: Butyrate pathway cloning, Human practices Flavia Valeo: Butyrate pathway cloning and testing, Human practices Farhan Mitha: Glycogen modification cloning Mark Elms: Glycogen modification cloning and testing Leda Coelewij: Starch modification cloning and testing Josh Thody: Modeling, Wiki master

Project advice

As well as receiving advice from our supervisors, we talked to several scientists with expertise in carbohydrates and the human digestive system about our project:

Alison Smith (John Innes Centre, NRP, Norwich, UK): Alison is an expert in the biosynthesis and breakdown of plant starches. She advised us on the starch biosynthetic pathway. Steph Bornemann (John Innes Centre, NRP, Norwich, UK): Steph is an expert in glycogen metabolism and enzymology in bacteria. He provided us with background knowledge about carbohydrate modification enzymes. Steph also imparted some invaluable advice about presentation skills. Arjan Narbad (Institute of Food Research, NRP, Norwich, UK): Arjan works on the microbial ecology of the gastrointestinal tract and the role of the complex gut microbiota in health and disease. We consulted him about pre- and probiotics and indicators of gut health. Arjan also provided access to faecal microbiota.

Technical Training and Advice

Our post-graduate advisors gave us the most day-to-day advice on protocols but several researchers around the Norwich Research Park shared specific protocols, expertise and experience with us and trained us in the use of specialised laboratory equipment. Carlos Lugo (The Sainsbury Laboratory, NRP, Norwich, UK): Carlos is a physics genius who works in bioinformatics and taught us about kinetic modelling and helped us with various 3D printers. Stephen Laycock (University of East Anglia, NRP, Norwich, UK) : Stephen helped us with the 3D printing of our glycogen molecules. Mark Youles (The Sainsbury Laboratory, NRP, Norwich, UK): Mark gave us training and advice on the Golden Gate Cloning methods we used to assemble parts for expression in plants. Karl Syson (John Innes Centre, NRP, Norwich, UK): Karl lent his help and advice on glycogen extraction and other biochemistry protocols. Elaine Barclay (John Innes Centre, NRP, Norwich, UK): Elaine helped us with microscopy techniques. Paul Brett (John Innes Centre, NRP, Norwich, UK): Paul trained us to use the HPLC and gave us advice on our protocols. Marilyn Pike (John Innes Centre, NRP, Norwich, UK): Marilyn gave advice on working with plant starches and shared her starch extraction and analysis protocols with us. Christopher Bennett (The Genome Analysis Centre, NRP, Norwich, UK): Chris taught us about design and gave us help and feedback on the design of the wiki. We are extremely grateful to members of the Balk lab for all the advice we received on molecular cloning... especially troubleshooting advice! Tracy Hannart and the rest of the Chatt Building laboratory support team at the John Innes Centre, NRP, who were constantly helpful and accommodating with numerous last minute media requests. We'd also like to thank the Norwich Research Park horticultural services who provided plants for our experiments.

Practices

Peter Curtis and Vera van der Velpen (Department of Nutrition, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, NRP, Norwich, UK): Peter and Vera taught us how human intervention studies and feeding trials are conducted. We discussed the future applications of our project with them and received their input and advice on how we could develop a feeding trial to show efficacy of our products in the future. Nikki Morris and Chris Bushby (The Big C, Norfolk, UK): We received help and advice on the ethical implications of our project, especially considering the productions of bioengineered products. Jenni Rant (John Innes Centre, NRP, Norwich, UK): Jenni organises events with the Science Art and Writing (SAW) Trust. She helped us to organise the Workshop for poets at the Norwich Writers Centre. Matha Henriques (John Innes Centre Communications Team, NRP, Norwich, UK): Martha wrote a press release about our project and gave us feedback and advice on blog posts and on science outreach and engagement. Nicolle Som (University of East Anglia, NRP, Norwich, UK): Organised a presentation of our project to the Enterprise and Engagement Group at the University of East Anglia.