Natasia worked with the computer programmer, Shaun, on developing the wiki. We created pages for various aspects of the project. A picture slider was inserted on the home page as well as boxes for the content. A menu bar was also created to allow a visitor to the site to navigate easily from one page to another.
We met to discuss various aspects of the project incuding fund raising, community outreach and the specifics involved in the machine construct. We set a deadline for Friday for the choice of aptamers and promoters for the project. The engineers will work on the modelling side of the project once the promoters and aptamers are chosen. We all had a look at the wiki and shared ideas on the look and feel of the site.
Brad and Richard worked on the modelling aspect of the project. The biologists researched various aptamers and promoters as potential candicates for the machine construct.
The biologists worked on doing research on the promoters and the aptamers that will be used in the project. The research indicated that the theophylene aptamer is leaky which is just what we need! The tetracycline aptamer seems to block translation not promote it (where we are looking for aptamers that promote translation). This means we will have to keep looking for our second aptamer.
Natasia met with a connection in a corporate institute who is involved with CSI funding allocations for tips on how to approach potential donors.
The biologists met to discuss the choice of aptamers but still only theophylline was a definite. The second aptamer to use was still being searched for. Brad came through to contribute to the biologists. His logic skills were invaluable! The biologists also researched toggle switches further to try come up with a way to create a system that is sensitive to a particular concentration of theophylline.
The biologists read through various articles about toggle switches. The use of a toggle switch will enable us to switch off the attraction of a bacterium to a substance only at a particular concentration.