Team:CCA SanDiego/Notebook
18 September 2014
Winter Break 20 December 2014 - 4 January 2015Julia Wisnia and Miya Coimbra officially formed the CCA iGEM team and began plans to recruit members through word-of-mouth, publication in school announcements, and contacts with high school science teachers.
15 January 20152 October 2014
20 January 2015Our initial members, including Julia Wisnia, Miya Coimbra, Ariel Braunstein, Olivia Shiah, Amanda Matheson, and Vivian Patton, held the first official meeting. We conducted research on potential projects. Suggestions included a smog filter composed of organic compounds to carry out anoxic decomposition, a method to mimic the glutamate protein pump in the brain to ensure the glutamate-GABA balance, a way to mimic the manner by which animals can predict coming natural disasters such as earthquakes, and gene repair through harnessing of the RAD51 gene.
22 January 20159 October 2014
23 January 2015Julia Wisnia, Miya Coimbra, Ariel Braunstein, Olivia Shiah, Amanda Matheson, Vivian Patton, Ravi Agarwal, and Maggie Chen met to continue brainstorming projects. We decided that mimicking animal detection of earthquakes was not a feasible option for synthetic biology using E. coli since it would likely require a complex nervous system. New ideas were conceived of (including possibilities for electrosynthesis, quorum sensing, and prevention of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome), but still the most plausible candidate for a synthetic biology application was determined to be gene repair using RAD51.
27 January 201523 October 2014
29 January 2015Another meeting was held among Julia Wisnia, Miya Coimbra, Ariel Braunstein, Olivia Shiah, Amanda Matheson, Vivian Patton, Ravi Agarwal, Maggie Chen, and Harrison Harris. Further research on potential projects was conducted. We also discussed iGEM fees and possible ways to fundraise; ideas included a bake sale, donations from family, and fundraising programs through local restaurants (such as Souplantation and Rubio’s). Miya Coimbra and Julia Wisnia discussed their attempts to find graduate student mentors from UCSD through email contact; unfortunately, responses are fairly intermittent.
30 January 201528 October 2014
3 February 2015Today was a finals day for CCA students, so school ended early (12:25 p.m.). An after-school meeting was scheduled to Skype with three new potential mentors (Jenhan Tao, Sophia Hirakis, and Benjamin Kellman). The meeting was attended by Julia, Miya, Ariel, and Olivia; it was fairly brief and primarily went over the potential projects that we had brainstormed earlier.
5 February 201530 October 2014
10 February 2015Miya, Ariel, Olivia, Amanda, Ravi, and Maggie attended a meeting to discuss fundraising. Souplantation gives a larger percentage of proceeds for fundraising events and is likely to be more popular among families, so we decided to schedule an appointment with them to host an event.
12 February 20156 November 2014
17 February 2015A fundraising event was held in the evening for families and friends to eat at Souplantation and for some of the proceeds to go toward funding our iGEM activities. Julia, Miya, Olivia, Amanda, Vivian, and Ravi attended.
24 February 201513 November 2014
3 March 2015Julia, Miya, Ariel, Olivia, Vivian, Ravi, Maggie, and Harrison attended a meeting after school to discuss topics and mentors. Unfortunately, based on prior discussions
5 March 201520 November 2014
10 March 2015Julia, Miya, Ariel, Olivia, Vivian, Ravi, Maggie, and Harrison attended a meeting after school to review the basic methodology of various wet lab techniques like PCR, gel electrophoresis, transfection and cell culture in order to prepare for the wet lab work that would come later in the project.
12 March 20152 December 2014
17 March 2015Julia, Miya, Ariel, Amanda, Olivia, Ravi, Harrison, Maggie, and Vivian met with Sophia Hirakis at the Salk Institute to review a wide range of biology concepts that would be helpful in the development and completion of our project.
19 March 201510 December 2014
24 March 2015Julia, Miya, Ariel, Amanda, Olivia, Ravi, Harrison, Maggie, and Vivian attended a meeting after school with Benjamin Kellman to review more concepts. This time we focused mostly on DNA and its structure and function, as well as ways that it can be altered.
31 March 201512 December 2014
9 April 2015Julia and Miya had a meeting with the mentors concerning the logistics of the project, such as where the team would meet, what time the meetings would be, and days of the week. They also talked about a general computational approach that we could apply to our project.
14 April 2015Over break we individually reviewed articles and online tutorials to better familiarize ourselves with synthetic biology concepts.
16 April 2015Julia, Miya, Ariel, Amanda, Olivia, Ravi, Harrison, Maggie, and Vivian attended a meeting after school with Benjamin Kellman to review more concepts. This time we focused mostly on DNA and its structure, function and ways that it can be altered.
21 April 2015Miya and Julia began our outreach program by volunteering at Solana Ranch, a local elementary school. They tutored students of all ages in any subject, but the focus was on STEM.
23 April 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students with a focus on STEM subjects.
28 April 2015Julia, Miya, Ariel, Amanda, Olivia, Ravi, Harrison, Maggie, and Vivian met with Sophia Hirakis at the Salk Institute to review a wide range of biology concepts that would be helpful in the development and completion of our project.
30 April 2015Miya, Maggie and Olivia went to Solana Ranch to tutor students with a focus on STEM subjects.
5 May 2015Maggie and Julia iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students with a focus on STEM subjects.
7 May 2015Miya, Ariel, Maggie, Vivian, and Harrison met after school to discuss the upcoming elections for club treasurer and vice president, as well as fundraising ideas to cover the registration cost.
12 May 2015Our team received a generous donation of $2500 from a local company, Cymer. This donation helped provide the funding necessary to register for the Jamboree and let us continue the project. Our whole team was very grateful and we sent a thank you note signed by the whole team to each of the company executives.
14 May 2015Miya and Amanda went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
19 May 2015iGEM team members submitted their votes online and elected Olivia as vice president and Maggie as treasurer for the team. Also, three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
21 May 2015Ariel and Amanda went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
26 May 2015The iGEM team went to UCSD where they continued working on VMD tutorials in order to prepare for their simulations.
28 May 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
2 June 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
4 June 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students, while the other iGEM members begin working on a Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) tutorial. The program is used to visualize, and analyze 3-D molecules, which we used later in our project.
9 June 2015Ariel and Miya went to Solana Ranch to tutor students, while the rest of the team goes to UCSD to continue VMD tutorials.
11 June 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
16 June 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD in order to continue brainstorming ideas for our project.
18 June 2015Vivian and two other iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
23 June 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD to continue to brainstorming project ideas, and working on the VMD tutorial.
25 June 2015Olivia and two other iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
30 June 2015Julia and Maggie went to Solana Ranch, a local elementary school, to tutor students with a focus on STEM subjects.
2 July 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD to continue to brainstorming project ideas, and working on the VMD tutorial.
7 July 2015Harrison, Julia and Amanda went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
9 July 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD to continue to brainstorming project ideas, and working on the VMD tutorial.
14 July 2015Vivian and Miya went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
16 July 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD to continue to brainstorming project ideas, and working on the VMD tutorial.
21 July 2015Julia and two other iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
23 July 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD to continue to brainstorming project ideas, and working on the VMD tutorial.
28 July 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
30 July 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD and completed the VMD tutorial. We then moved on to the Assisted Model Building with Energy Refinement (AMBER) tutorial. AMBER is used to simulate the way molecules act in different environments. We would use this program later in our project.
4 August 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
6 August 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD and continued working on the AMBER tutorial. We also began finalizing our project idea, and began doing more research on biosensors.
11 August 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
13 August 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD and continued working on the AMBER tutorial. We also continued to do research on biosensors.
18 August 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
20 August 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD and continued working on the AMBER tutorial. We also continued to do research on biosensors.
25 August 2015Three iGEM team members went to Solana Ranch to tutor students.
27 August 2015Amanda, Miya, Julia, Ariel, Maggie, Olivia, and Vivian met at UCSD and finished the AMBER tutorial. We also continued to do research on biosensors.
3 September 2015