Minutes

2 February 2011

The first four recruited iGEM team members met at Med Campus, namely Ezio, Sasha, Richard and Natasia. We discussed further recruiting of members from the Science, Humanities and Engineering faculties. Marco gave us advice on ways in which to work best together. He also told us that we should aim to start lab work earlier than the team of last year.

3 February 2011 (Karl and Natasia)

After being recruited on the iGEM team, I met with Karl who is my supervisor for the project for the year. He and I discussed a few ideas for the project. He recommended that I read Jay Keasling's articles. Some of the ideas we discussed was a way of hydrolysing hormones present in water using bacteria. We also discussed perhaps a project looking at the ability to stop conjugation in bacteria.

7 February 2011 (Karl and Natasia)

We discussed the Jay Keasling articles I had read. The one which was most interesting was the one on the production of an antimalarial precursor. We also discussed a project idea to aid in the treatment of acid mine drainage.

9 February 2011 (Karl, Brad, Richard and Tash)

Richard and Brad met with Karl for the first time. Brad said he would create the wiki for the team as well as being involved in the modeling and process control. Richard, also an engineer, will too be involved in the process control and modeling as well as aid us in the chemical engineering aspect of the project.

11 Feburary 2011 (Meeting at the PiG)

The team members who were able to attend this meeting were Sasha, Ezio, Richard and Natasia. Michelle from last year's team was also there. We spoke about recruiting a fourth biologist. We also discussed fundraising ideas as well as the direction of the project (whether it would be industrial or medical in nature).

16 February 2011 (Pizza at Primi)

At the meeting at Primi Piatti, we officially welcomed Gloria onto our team. She is the fourth biologist on the team and is doing her honours in microbiology at Wits. We used the time at the restaurant to get to know each other better as well as to discuss some ways of ensuring the group works well together. We discussed our goals in the project and were advised by those involved in last year's iGEM Wits team to ensure we include all team members in all aspects of the project as this will ensure enthusiasm throughout the project. We also discussed our goals for the project and what we wish to achieve in the competition. We are all very excited about the project and motivated to do well.