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From 2011.igem.org

Today we started with a briefing from Frank where the main action points of the day were discussed. These included creating a cleaner and more standardized wiki code as to ease future editing as well as determining which projects that we had each researched the previous day could be a viable project. We also agreed to only use HTML code when writing in the wiki.

"Wiki Rules" were established by Frank:

1) You do not talk about wiki editing
2) You do not talk about wiki editing
3) All files are to be uploaded with the name : ICL_Exact_Description_of_File_with_a_number
4) Keep the formatting the same on every page
5) DO NOT change content that someone else has uploaded without talking to them first
6) Please always upload in HTML, not Wiki Formatting
7) Try and make your content look like the other content on the page

We established roles for everyone in the team that they will need to fulfil during the project:
Rebekka - Stocks supplies protocols
Nick - Human Practices
Ming - Collaboration
Yuanwei - Wiki
Frank - Software/hardware
Chris - Parts characterisation
Nikki - Cloning
Si - Modelling
Nina - Photo/Media/Film

We spent around an hour or two clearing up and getting to know the HTML language. At around 11, three students from the RCA came to talk about their projects. Coby presented his ideas of growing furniture as well as trying to recreate his grandfather's psyche in a mouse. Pei-Ying presented her projects; using smallpox vaccines as a form of prevention against future terrorist attacks, nano diets where all the basic dietary requirements (vitamins, monosaccharides, amino acids, etc) are measured to the exact amount needed and a strange device that would store the voice of another human being if you were to touch them. CJ introduced us to several artists like Orlan and their ideas:

Koby:
• Transferring life/soul into a project
• Growing furniture parts

Pei-Ying:
• Vaccine Beauty - smallpox can cause scarring - scar art - get newest virus to be infected by so that you are immune to the latest version
• Minimal Nano-Diet Guide - transparent food
• Use Genetic code as a way to protect data by encoding their voices

CJ:
• SOBAgate - What happens if you modified people to react differently in response to feelings of greed, lust or anger
- lust - all the blood goes to genitals and they pass out
- anger - voice becomes squeaky
- greed - gut bacteria release aspirin like chemicals so eating cake results in rashes, bleeding and bruises

Older artists
Oron Catts - all about half-living/half-dead tissue
• sets up a lab in a gallery
• Pig wings - growing wings from pigskin
• Half-living worry doll - people write worries into a computer and this altered the nutrients available to the doll
• Victimless meat - grew little steaks
• Victimless leather - grew a tiny leather jacket - got shut down due to contamination/fear

Orlan - Saint Orlan - did plastic surgery as performance - was interested in how her beauty affected other people
• apparently gives amazing talks
• harlequin suit inspired by Catts - grown triangles of skin from diff. races and animals and made them into a technicolour coat

Newer artists:
David Benque - singing flowers
• designed a range of plants that would make sounds
• so diff. plants at diff. times of year would be musical
• ie modified bacteria makes gas so flower would inflate and then the air would escape and make a sound - a fart sound
• saying that synthetic biology doesn't have to be scary

Tuur van balen
• Pigeon d'or - modify pigeons so that they shit soap
• designed objects that people would have in that reality
• leech - adapt how melancholy you felt using certain yeasts that affect your mood - leech assesses how melancholy you are and processes the blood and introduces endorphins
• then blend leech and eat it

After this presentation we discussed our ideas with the students of the RCA over a lunch at Eastside.We continued brainstorming and decided that this idea might be possible though the use of vesicles, however, it is no longer a priority project.

Ideas Discussion
Snake Antivenom - get lots of bacteria with a hypermutagenic region in a plasmid that makes a protein on the cell surface and then select for the proteins and therefore for the genes by testing the binding affinity of the cell surface markers and therefore the bacteria - This can then be used to select for the protein/proteins that have the greatest binding affinity to the venom proteins and so an optimum mixture of antivenom proteins can be made
Melatonin - Not good as its just expressing something
Chris' Vampires - More research needed - ask an expert on clots
Si Chen's Leaves - Bit of a chemistry project - cellulases are tricky to work with
Yuanwei - Waste is too vague, but a nice idea - possibly put on back burner
Rebekka - dismiss food waste one as it is too vague
• bacteria that can detect and fight staph aureus would be useful - may need more research - so it was put on the back burner

We have decided to split the team into 3 teams. Nicola, Nikki and Rebekka will be working on the prodigiosin pigment. Si, Nina and Yuanwei will be working on trying to improve on a bacterial hard drive that has already been tried in past iGEM projects. Frank, Ming and Chris will be working on the anti-venom idea. We will also try to use a little time to come up with more problems we could try to solve tomorrow.

(Entry by Frank and Chris, edited by Rebekka)