Notebook

Brainstorm

During recruiting for members of the 2011 team during winter quarter, interested students participated in weekly journal sessions in which they read articles regarding recent advancements in synthetic biology, as well as took part in brainstorming sessions. During spring quarter, newly recruited members participated in weekly "boot camp" sessions in which they learned cloning techniques such as transformations and miniprepping, as well as continued to brainstorm additional ideas. The following list of generated ideas was developed throughout this time.

• Silk production
• Atherosclerosis treatment- arterial plaque remover, substance removal from blood, thrombus-formation preventer
• Toenail clipper
• Light (opsin)
• Tumor detection
• Memory/music i/o
• Bacterial circuit
• miracle fruit
• power medical devices
• medical targeting
• hair eating
• transcription ceasing bacteria (better chassis?)
• appetite control
• acne prevention
• skin moisturizer
• air freshener-- done before? with the wintergreen and banana scented bacteria from MIT.
• hold soil to prevent erosion
• water treatment
• chocolate-tasting bacteria-- not sure how feasible it would be to create a “food” product. I wouldn’t want to taste it to see if it worked...
• asian carp killing bacteria
• h2o trapping in ground
• custom restriction enzyme
• Salt transport
• Membrane electro-polarity
• Pesticide/Repellent
• Scaffolding
• bio-glue

Halfway through spring quarter, the list of ideas was narrowed down and team members split into several groups to research and prepared Round 1 of presentations to their faculty advisers. Advisers provided feedback regarding the feasibility of each potential project.

• Helen and Rafay

• Bioadhesive
• Night light
• Light sensitive sensors

• Michael and Valerie

• Temperature sensitive salt release
• Mosquito repellent
• Amino acid detection system

• Kristin and Nirmit

• Fluorescent thermometer
• Preventative blood clotting
• Temperature regulation

For Round 2 of presentations, team members decided on their favorite ideas from Round 1. Each team further researched one idea that they retained from Round 1, as well as came up with two new ideas for Round 2.

• Helen and Rafay

• Ecolights
• Vitamin K production
• Oxidation sensor as toxin barometer

• Michael and Valerie

• Bacterial ink
• Detecting rotting wood
• Amino acid detection

• Nirmit and Kristin

• Temperature regulation
• Quorum sensing
• Alcohol sensor

Teams then narrowed their ideas one last time to one per pair for Round 3

• Helen and Rafay - Bacterial thermometer
• Michael and Valerie - Quorum sensing
• Nirmit and Kristin - Ecolights

During the first week of summer research, team members continued to peruse literature and decided to build a quorum sensor as their final project goal.