Team:NYC Wetware/Notebook/Summary

We began our weekly meetings in late February. Our team members were spread out in Universities all across NYC so we set up a video conference between Cornell and Yeshiva University to start brainstorming ideas for our iGEM project.

Team members began pouring over the literature on everything to do with Deinococcus Radiodurans. Through consultation with our faculty mentors and outside 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 cloning them into E. coli, we hope to confer D. rad's extreme resistance to radiation 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.