Team:BABS UNSW Australia/Notebook2
NoteBook
A brief summary of our trials, tribulations and fleeting moments of joy.
Late November - Early December 2014
Following a lecture recruitment hustle by Rob, team members applied and were selected for the iGEM team. We all started reading up on synthetic biology and dreaming potential projects ranging from far-fetched to science fiction to milk.
17-19 February 2015
The team attended a three day bootcamp run by Rob, Daniel and Chris. We learned the basics of molecular biology techniques for the iGEM competition - cloning, enzyme digests, ligations and transformations. We participated in many sessions (some lead by team members) about other aspects of the competition - wiki design, primer design, actual design design. We also started presenting and discussing project ideas, and brainstorming ways to make each of them better.
2-6 March 2015
The uni semester starts, and we had our first meeting on the first day. We discussed communication strategies (online labbooks, OneNote vs Evernote) and role allocation. Most importantly, we started seriously talking about various projects ideas and their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Projects discussed included:
9-13 March 2015
Despite our 8am Monday morning meeting, we enthusiastically discussed a narrowed down list of projects, and set down pros and cons for each. After some discussion and a preferential vote, we settled on Endosynbio! Despite lying on the sci-fi end of the spectrum, we found some seemingly achievable goals to achieve with our project and decided it was worth the risk. The three parts as we decided were:
16-20 March 2015
At this Monday morning meeting, we discussed a wide range of topics. We started getting organised in terms of funding, outreach, wiki, team roles and labwork. We were all still spending a lot of time reading up and dreaming up project and outreach ideas.
We had a separate design meeting (Kris, Mac, Daniel) where several ideas, including the DNA rainbow serpent, were borne (and rapidly buried).
Not satisfied with our one-hour meetings, the team (minus advisors) planned to meet all day on saturday. It was surprisingly fun, productive, and everyone left feeling optimistic.
23-27 March 2015
Monday morning meeting: more project discussion. What symbionts/host cell lines should we use? Synechocystis seemed to be the favourite. We also decided on the importance of a very effective kill switch.
30 March - 3 April 2015
Another early Monday morning meeting. Prior art searches showed significant similarity of our planned project to two previous iGEM projects (Warsaw 2009-2010). The main concern of this meeting was finding ways to differentiate our project from those, and make it novel. Ideas included a focus on population control within the cell and making the host reliant on the endosymbiont.
We finished writing our first grant application, for a grant offered by NSW Trade & Innovation.
We investigated flights to Boston in September. Australia is very far from the rest of civilisation, so this was important.
13-17 April 2015
A difficult week for the team, as we dealt with the loss of one our team members. The project took a hiatus as we mourned Ben. Words cannot express the shock and deep sadness we all felt. Though this wiki notebook seems like a strange forum to discuss such a tragic event, to gloss over it would be impossible. His absence was deeply felt. Several team members attended his funeral this week, and this further emphasised the tragedy of his passing. He was surrounded by loving family and friends. His ambition and passion for science and helping others has driven and informed the rest of our project. Rest in peace, Ben. Words on a wiki cannot do you justice, but I feel like you would appreciate it.
20-24 April 2015
We had our weekly Monday morning meeting, and a separate wiki and kill switch design meeting.
NEW! Wetlab:
We started lab work: making media (LB and SOC) and pouring agar plates. Also, the distribution kit arrived.27 April-May 1 2015
This was an assessment-heavy week for all of us, so not much progress was made. However, we managed to write and distribute our first monthly newsletter.