Team:Cambridge/Notebook/Summary

Crash Course

At the start of the summer we had a two-week crash course in synthetic biology. Having lectures from a wide range of experts and practicals in the afternoon including electrical engineering, Team:Cambridge/Gibson/IntroductionGibson Assembly and tower construction, we learnt a lot about synthetic biology and engineering. It was also a great way to get to know each other, our supervisors and all the other students that also attended the course.

Brainstorming

After a successful crash course in synthetic biology we spent a couple of days days generating as many ideas as we could, and then whittling them down to a final four - Turing Patterns, Bioluminesence, Quiesence and HIV Diagnosis. After a few more days of research we decided to focus on bioluminescence and quiescence, splitting the project into three parts - luciferase optimisation and luciferin recovery, luciferin synthesis, and turning quiescence into biobricks, and presented our ideas to our supervisors.

UK Meetup

We went to Newcastle to meet other UK iGEM teams and present our ideas to each other. We had good fun with the team building exercises and listened to some useful lectures.

Research

Now we had a more concrete idea of our project we spent several days gathering as much literature on bioluminescence as we could, and consulted with people with prior experience of working with biouminescence. Dr Summers helped us with our plans on quiescence and discussed IP concerns.

The Wetwork Begins

We began the arduous process of generating enough competent cells to last us for the entire project, and started planning some experiments and DNA synthesis orders. After DNA from James Slock arrived, we transformed it successfully into some HNS mutant strains and obtained glowing bacteria.

A Sneaky Holiday

We went to the Lake District.