Team:NYC Wetware/Notebook/Summary

We began our weekly meetings in late February to start brainstorming ideas for out iGEM project. To accommodate all our team members in different Universities across NYC, we set up video conferencing between Weill Cornell Medical College and Yeshiva University.

Team members began pouring over the literature on everything to do with Deinococcus Radiodurans, our model organism for radioactive resistance. Through consultation with our faculty mentors and D. rad experts, we recognized that Deinococcus has three unique pathways for protecting itself against radiation: (1) regulation of cellular Mn/Fe rations, (2) oxidative damage shielding, and (3) special mechanisms of DNA repair. We chose to attack all three. By isolating the genes relevant to each one and cloning them into E. coli, we planned on conferring D. rad's extreme resistance mechanisms to E. coli.

The push to Biobrick radioresistance in the Cornell lab space began at the end of May when Jake, David, and Yossi finished up their semesters.

Attributions or the Breakdown of Labor:
David Sweet and Jake Friedman did all of the biobricking and cloning work. Jake wrote the Food Traditions article. David and Yossi went to Camp Simcha. Yossi did Bionumbers and also experimental work during September. Yair wrote the Biology Radiation Discussion Page. Ariel is working on creating an animation for the Jamboree Talk. Noah wrote the Bioremediation page. Kate is making the video. Dr. Mason wrote the Mason Lab Plan page. Dr. Gross, Alex and Kurt helped all around. Russell administrated.

Ted Scovell was our enthusiastic partner in creating the Camp Simcha Lab and recruited Hannah Landes, the able high-school student on our NYC_Sortware team.