Team:Alberta

Genomikon: an Educational Toolkit for the Rapid Gene Assembly

Synthetic biology is a new and rapidly expanding field that has potential applications in virtually every aspect of society. However, as it stands today, the efficiency of synthetic biology is hindered by lengthy reaction times, expensive reagents, and inaccessibility. If the synthetic biology approach is to be used consistently to solve various problems, it must be made significantly more efficient and available. The University of Alberta is developing a method of gene assembly that is modular, rapid, accessible, and inexpensive. Our aim is to make a kit, Genomikon, which will enable anyone to assemble and insert genes into bacteria without a lab or prior experience. Everything in our kit will be optimized so that it can be used at room temperature and without special equipment. Our online lab manual, complete with videos and animations will be an easy-to-use, supplementary resource to accompany our kit.

To further demonstrate the accessibility of our Genomikon toolkit, we plan to implement it in a high school laboratory setting. Our modular assembly method will allow high school students to give bacteria numerous characteristics from fluorescence to the ability to make a bacterial photograph. Several of these parts will be obtained from the projects of past iGEM teams. The DNA encoding each trait will be present in novel BioBytes, especially designed for our kit. The modularity of these Biobytes will allow students to be able to choose which parts to use. The kit will even allow for various levels of difficulty, depending on the number and types of parts the students choose to assemble. We believe that our kit has the potential to be a revolutionary educational tool. Using our novel method of DNA assembly, the kit will not only optimize the current procedures of synthetic biology, but will also expose a new generation of students to this exciting field.