Team:Newcastle/Meetings/26 March 2010

Formal meeting - 26th March 2010

• Room: CBCB; Start: 11 am
• Chair: Jannetta, Minutes: Rachel, Computer: Harsh
• Present: Jen, Janetta, Neil, Steven,Younus, Da, Alan, Richard, Harsh
• Apologies: Phil (holiday), Jem and Matt
• Approval of agenda and minutes - Approved

Research Feedback

1. Properties of concrete and surface tension (Zoltan and Steven)
   • High compressive strength low tensile strength
   • Steal added good for temp change
   • CaCO₃ – similar to concrete; expand same as concrete - might crack like concrete
   • Spider silk like steal - reduce possibility of cracking
   • Glue - no many papers - expansion may not be a problem?
   • Silk alkali resistant
   • Capillary properties of concrete change over time- in project we consider small rapid
   • Cement water ratio and surface area and environment
   • Where to look for the cracks? Crack pattern
2. Microinjection (Zoltan and Steven)
   • Simple issue
   • Not correct term
   • Swimming Bacillus
   • Oxygen gradient big selling points
3. Genetics Homologous recombination plasmid chromosome (Harsh and Rachel)
   • Test in plasmids- Find good plasmid
   • Integrate into genome
   • Recombination site... Find!!!
   • amyE site amylase with insert can’t break down amylase
4. Nutrients (Harsh and Rachel)
   • Bacteria algae growth living in concrete
   • Only activate feed bacillus
   • Two hybrid
   • Biofilms exclude other not algae
   • Antifungals, antialgaes, antibiotic
5. Sporulation, germination and secretion control (Alan and Da)
   • SpoA – last years team sporulation control, maybe turn off completely
   • Nutrient availability
   • KinA
   • Inducible promoter
   • Glue out of bug
6. Quorum sensing (Younus and Phil)
   • CompX and cff
   • Two-component system comP
7. Kill switch (Richard and Jannetta)
   • Why ? Don’t want?- not die after job fill new cracks
   • Nuclease
   • Phil mazEF
   • Skf SbB
   • If linear DNA works
8. Glue, CaCo3 and spider silk (Zoltan and Jannetta)
   • Bacteria that produce CaCo3 from urea
   • How secrete spider silk long complex proteins – how can we make it happen in bacillus
   • Secretion systems
9. Other points
   • Linear DNA – Richard
   • Justifications of Linear
   • Build it up the use
   • Mutations
   • Not specifically a problem – keep thinking about it though

Action points

• All - Read Voigt paper
• All - Next week working off the proper wiki
• Janetta contact details doc in drop box
• Janetta and Richard – Flow chart!!!
• Reminder to neil and jen not welcome trust funding by 2nd of April?
• Janetta - T-shirt sponsors and logo – embroidered / print mixed – 5 or 6 sponsors design your own- printing cheaper, quotes dependent on design
• Jannetta - send us links for graphic design software- please
• Transfer the wiki
• Individual iGEM applications - Phil hasn’t applied; Richard not accepted; Janetta text Phil
• Jen/Neil - Pay for team!!
• Visas/Passport update - Harsh will apply May/June; Richard needs to get a visa waiver

Wiki transfer

• Clarify contents of identified pages
• Ethics page
• Research page
• Safety page
• Identify other pages required
• Ideas for layout/theme
• Zoltan - Tidy it up - Urgent
• Borrow last years / Look at anything thats nice
• It evolves!!! We can change it

Travel plans

• Flights and Accomodation
  • Need to sort out who is going

Funding

• Harsh has made draft letter
• Main chemical company – free stuff?

Advisors/additional team members - civil engineer/graphics designer

• Still looking – Neil, Jen

Tutorials

1. Sequentia and Clone manager - basics
2. Modelling part two

What next?

• Flow chart of what we’re going to do Big picture!!!
• If its coloured life is easier
• Cambridge brick - Colour
• Web services for Biosynthetics, Flow chart
• Taverner

Timeline discussion

• Need someone else on time line.
• 16th of June Lab induction
• Deadlines soon
• Change flight deadline – not 31st

Other business

• PDF mark up tools – PDF exchange viewer, foxit, keeps mark-up
• Making dropbox use better

Items for next agenda

• Need wiki transferred by next meeting
• Review of flow chart if done

Next meeting

• Thursday early as possible – email to organise
• Chair: Da, Minutes: Alan, Computer: Younus