Revision as of 19:04, 21 September 2011

Welcome

Welcome to the iGEM 2011 Amsterdam wiki! Our team consists of students from the University of Amsterdam and the VU University Amsterdam. On this site you can find everything that has to do with our project: icE. coli. You will also find information on:

... and lots of other information relating to your project.

Please take a look around, and be sure to contact us with any questions!

Abstract

Escherichia coli's optimal growth temperature is 37°C. Its growth rate decreases drastically at lower temperatures and growth completely halts below 7°C. The aim of our project is to increase the cold tolerance of E. coli by expressing and combining several chaperone proteins that are normally found in psychrophillic bacteria. Chaperone proteins are essential in maintaining correct protein folding following changes in temperature. As such, expressing these proteins will enable enhanced growth rates at temperatures below 37°C and shift the minimal growth temperature down from 7°C, possibly even allowing growth near 0°C. Protein expression is achieved by using BioBricks, combining promoters and ribosome binding sites characterized by previous iGEM teams with newly synthesized genes that encode for psychrophile chaperones. While our subject is mainly fundamental in nature, there are various practical applications such as selection for growth on low temperatures instead of antibiotics or the optimization of biofuel production.

News

22-09-2011

Wikifreeze

We have finished our website and are now getting ready for an entire week focussing on the presentation, poster and all the other preparations. In a couple of hours all the European wiki's will be frozen, so we will not be able to change anything till the 3th of October. Luckily for us we have confirmed that our icE.coli will survive this wiki freeze. Hopefully we will see you all in Amsterdam next week.

21-09-2011

Media attention by Bionieuws

We got media attention by the magizine for biologists: Bionieuws. Every two weeks, new and exciting bionews is published. This time, Bionieuws has an article dedicated to the iGEM competition, iGEM team Amsterdam and the project IcE. coli.

20-09-2011

Interview with Robbert Dijkgraaf

Today two of our teammembers went to the UvA for an interview with Robbert Dijkgraaf. Dijkgraaf is a professor in Mathematical Physics at the University of Amsterdam and president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. We talked to him about Synthetic Biology: the dangers and the impact on society, but also about what scientists can do to involve the public in the debate. More information on this interview can be found here

18-09-2011

Media attention by C2W and Elsevier Science

Again, we got media attention by two scientific magazines: C2W and Elsevier Science. Read the article of C2W here and that of Elsevier Science here .

16-09-2011

Last day of biobrickbuilding

Today was the last day to finish the constructs. All our parts have been sent to the iGEM headquarters and the last growth experiments have started. Next week we will focus on collecting the last results and finishing the wiki before the wikifreeze next wednesday.

13-09-2011

Media attention by Ad Valvas

One of our university papers, Ad Valvas, has interviewed us about our project. In the article, members of iGEM team Amsterdam tells the story about our 'cool' bacteria and human outreach projects. Click here to read their story.

01-09-2011

Meeting of Young Minds in Delft

To help the political youth parties with their debate, the iGEM team in Delft, in cooperation with the Rathenau institute, has organized an entire to discuss ethics and iGEM. It was a very interesting day. We'd like to thank Delft for organizing this succesful day. More information on this day can be read here

29-08-2011

Ethics discussion with Dwars

Today, two of our teammates traveled to Utrecht to be present at a meeting of DWARS, the youth department of the political party Groen Links ('Green Left'). The meeting was held to discuss synthetic biology. We started by giving a small presentation on synthetic biology, iGEM and the ethical side of our research. After presenting this information, we participated in a stimulating debate. Overall it was a very fruitful evening and we think that both sides came in touch with interesting new perspectives. More information on this discussion can be found here.

26-08-2011

First succesful assemblies!

After many weeks of trial and error, the first assemblies have succeeded! Armed with fresh construction intermediates, the race is on to make and characterize our CryoBricks!

22-08-2011

Introduction day at faculty VU

Today, the introduction days at the VU started. The freshmen were shown around campus and were introduced to several departments and committees. Our iGEM team arranged to be part of this day in order to have the opportunity to introduce our project to the freshman. Read more...

15-08-2011

Team Amsterdam among favourites

Team Amsterdam is one of the teams to watch out for during the competition, says Christian Lund, a medicine student from Denmark. He participated in last year’s iGEM competition and is now following the progress of the different teams. Read more...

10-08-2011

We now have a newssection. This way you can keep up with the interesting things that happen during our project.

Would you like to contact us? E-Mail

Follow @igemamsterdam

Would you like to help us? Donate here!

Updates

22/09/11 - Wikifreeze: All of our pages have been finalized!
08/09/11 - The BioBricks pages are undergoing a major overhaul!
06/09/11 - Over the last weeks all pages have received updates. Be sure to check them all!
10/08/11 - The Description has been updated!
27/07/11 - The Notebook page has been restructured!
26/07/11 - The Students page has been updated!
19/07/11 - Several meetings and lab journal entries placed onto notebook
13/07/11 - The Project Description and Safety pages have been updated!
08/07/11 - Several meetings placed onto notebook
06/07/11 - Added several lab journal entries
05/07/11 - Updated several bios and notebook
29/06/11 - Several meetings placed onto notebook
28/06/11 - Many small layout changes made
27/06/11 - Several meetings placed onto notebook
24/06/11 - Added notebook calendar
23/06/11 - Fixed sponsor template
21/06/11 - Remaining protocols added
20/06/11 - First protocols added
17/06/11 - Photos added at lab environment
15/06/11 - Created footer
15/06/11 - Created all pages
12/06/11 - Created first version of header
02/06/11 - Temporary wiki online

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 <li>The <a href="https://2011.igem.org/Team:Amsterdam/Notebook/Overview">day-to-day labwork</a><br>
 </ul><br>
-... and lots of other intormation relating to your project.<br><br>
+... and lots of other information relating to your project.<br><br>
 Please take a look around, and be sure to <A HREF="mailto:igemamsterdam@gmail.com">contact us</a> with any questions!
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