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Team:KULeuven/Notebook
From 2011.igem.org
Revision as of 13:28, 18 August 2011 by Tom Broeckx (Talk | contribs)
Week 1
The first week in the wet lab started with the preparation of materials needed in future experiments. We made growth medium and agar plates containing antibiotics, which will be used to culture bacteria. Furthermore competent cells were prepared with the CaCl2 – method. We also resuspended the DNA of the biobricks necessary for our project as described in the iGEM guidelines. We managed to perform the first transformations with the competent cells and the resuspended DNA and thus concluded that the competent cells were functional.
Week 2
This week we wanted to purify the plasmid DNA from the bacteria grown in the first week. To do this we inoculated growth medium with antibiotics and a single colony. These cultures were incubated overnight at 37°C followed by a minipreparation to purify the DNA from the bacteria. Due to the low DNA yield we decided to repeat the minipreparation. This repetition succeeded in producing higher DNA concentrations.
Week 3
The goal this week was to bring different biobricks together in one plasmid (=ligation). We started with restriction of the biobricks that had been miniprepped the previous week. Some biobricks were successfully cut by the restriction enzymes whilst others weren’t. We performed gel purifications on the restricted fragments. However this didn’t result in high enough concentrations to start the ligation of biobricks.
Week 4
This week we mainly focused on performing restriction of the biobricks (according to the standard assembly method this time) and gel purification of those restricted fragments. Most restrictions worked nicely but gel purification almost never resulted in measurable concentrations. We also transformed and miniprepped 2 new promotors we want to use. Furthermore, the primers we ordered from Eurogentec have arrived and we started with the PCR of INP, MelA, Ribolock and the 4 IGEM vectors.
Week 5
This week we mainly tried to get enough DNA for performing restrictions. Since the miniprep kits usually give lower concentrations than the CTAB method, we decided to switch to the CTAB method. This method takes a little bit longer than minipreparations with a kit, but we expected to get higher amounts of DNA. However, this was not the case here. Since Thursday we also noticed the agar plates seemed to be contaminated and we decided to start all over again.
Week 6
This week we started with minipreparations of the promotors and GFP that were transformed in TOP10 cells last week. This time, the CTAB method worked very good and resulted in a high DNA concentration. Restriction and ligation were thus performed but so far we only found false positive colonies. We will switch back to the 3A assembly method next week to get better results and finally get some ligated fragments.
Week 1
We installed the Matlab software and Simbiology toolkit, we watched some tutorial ‘webinars’ from Mathworks. In a meeting with the advisors, we learned more about the purpose and basics of modeling in synthetic biology. After downloading the projects of previous year teams of the K.U.Leuven to understand the inner workings of their model.
Week 2
We made our own model in Simbiology of the freeze-antifreeze system. We still have to implement the kinetic parameters of the whole system to predict the outcome of the wet lab experiments. We wait for the promoters linked to GFP, synthesized in the wet lab, to check the kinetics of the promoters.
Week 3
Installation of maya, an amazing 3D-visualising program, provided by iGEM sponsor the mathworks. We checked the price and normally it costs $3,251! Time to watch tutorials... Friday-evening we had a funny evening dinner with our team
Week 4
Place text of third week modelling category.
Week 5
These week we focused on PowerPoint animations and project description. The PowerPoint animation should make the project overview more attractive. We’re wondering which software other teams are using for animations. 3D-animations are to difficult and time-consuming while PowerPoint animations are rather simple. We also worked on project description, describing all the biobricks we are going to use and also which one we can’t use anymore because they didn’t work in the lab.
Week 1
The first day we divided the work. We decided to divide ourselves in smaller teams, one of these smaller teams started working on ethics, safety and education. We started with brainstorming; we were looking for an original idea for presenting the safety problems. After finding a good concept we read several papers. From Wednesday until Friday we worked really hard on writing a text about all the dangers our organism could entail. Tuesday, the 5th of July Eurogentec and Delphi Genetics gave us an interesting presentation about their companies and what they do. Afterwards we talked about our projects and they gave us interesting insides and offered to help us when needed. We are very thankful and I hope to visit their lab in the future. Eurogentec agreed to synthesize primers and the AFP gene for us, free of charge. Delphi Genetics also agreed to sponsor us, by giving us a 96 well-plate with DG1 competent cells. Thank you for that!
Week 2
When we finished writing the final safety text, it was passed on to the design team to be put on the website. Afterwards, we started working on the ethics and education part. We wanted to create something outstanding and interactive which hadn’t been done before. That’s why we came up with the idea to make a small movie about Chris and Stefan who aren’t familiar with synthetic biology and GMO’s. We formed three different groups of people to work with: youngsters (app. twelve years old), student of several universities and seniors. Uitgeverij Cascade NV. (EOS, Scientific American, Psyche & Brein) agreed to sponsor us by giving us 200 magazines which we can use as promotional material!
Week 3
This week, we’ve worked on our debate. The organization of this event is not going smoothly but we will not give up! Genzyme announced that they will be a Silver Sponsor of the K.U.Leuven iGEM team!
Week 4
ULB agreed to collaborate with us!! The debate is starting to take shape! On Tuesday, Jeroen and Tom first went to Antwerp to collect the 200 magazines of 'Uitgeverij Cascade NV.' and afterwards they drove towards Gosselies, next to Charleroi. There, they received DG1 competent cells and promotional material from Philippe Gabant of Delphi Genetics. Thrombogenics announced that they will be a Jamboree Sponsor of the K.U.Leuven iGEM team! On Friday we had contact with the Edinburgh iGEM team and hopefully we will send them the INP-gene in the beginning of next week! After the weekly team meeting, Tom went to Genzyme in Geel, to collect 100 bags and 100 gimmicks, Thanks Genzyme =]
Week 5
On Tuesday, Raf Roelands provided us with tons of gimmicks from Eurogentec: 100 pens and lots of mints. Our goodiebags are finally starting to take shape. We also applied to be featured in the BBC documentary about synthetic biology, which would be an honour if we would be the chosen one! Our wetlab team faced major problems with the INP gene, but we will soon receive a plasmid containing the INP from Professor Steven E. Lindlow from the University of California, Berkeley and from Professor Gregory Gloor from the University of Western Ontario, for which we are very grateful. We will also send this plasmid to the Edinburgh team (or make sure that the labs also send it to them) because they also have problems with the INP gene. On Wednesday, most of us were lined up for a short introduction movie for our 'BBC film' application. The project with the children is approaching! Only two more weeks and we will make them our little scientists, let their imagination run wild! Now we're working hard on the organisation of the debate. ULB has found two professors who want to come as speakers to our debate.
Week 6
We are still working on the debate. We have four speakers: Prof. Bruno André, Prof. Jacques van Helden, Prof. Filip Rolland and Prof. Johan de Tavernier. Though it is a little tricky to get a moderator. Sir Rob Heirbaut wasn' able to come on the first of September, hopefully sir Jeroen Tuytten will give us a positive response! We made a detailed program for our workshop with kids. The workshop will be next week! Also a booklet about our project has been made in English and Dutch, for the boardmeeting of the K.U.Leuven. We received lots of gimmicks from imec (see our facebook). IBM announced to be a platinumsponsor, which deserves a BIG thank you!
Week 7
On Tuesday we organized a workshop about synthetic biology and DNA for 36 children (9-11 years old). After discussing with them what scientists do and what DNA and synthetic biology is, we extracted DNA from tomatoes together with them, which they found very amusing! Then we asked them to draw whatever they wanted to create with synthetic biology. Afterwards they received their own Eppendorf tube filled with the extracted DNA. Rob TV was present at the workshop and filmed [http://robtv.be/nieuws/oud-heverlee/tienjarigen-ontdekken-dna] the whole workshop. Pictures, movies and the drawings will be uploaded soon. Furthermore Beneo-Remy and reMYND agreed to become a Jamboree sponsor. VWR agreed to be our Platinum sponsor (we even receive new sets of microliter pipettes) ! The first persons registered for our debate on the 1st of September! We also received pop-ups from the K.U.Leuven to properly dress our debate room. The K.U.Leuven furthermore donates 100 additional bags and 200 beach balls, to expand our goodie bags! We received a plasmid with the inaZ gene from Prof. Gregory Gloor and we will send it to the Edinburgh team on Monday!
