Team:UGA/InterLab

InterLab

Bronze Medal Criterion #4

Summary of interlab: For the 2018 interlab, there were two sets of experiments that were performed. First, a known concentration of silica beads similar in size and shape to E. coli was used to develop a standard curve from which cell absorbance could be converted to equivalent concentration of beads measurements. A similar experiment was performed to develop a fluorescence standard curve, whereby colonies expressing GFP had their fluorescence compared to a standard curve generated from fluorescein. Finally, the colony forming units per mL of overnight culture were determined by plating a series of dilutions until the samples gave a countable number of colonies. All of these experiments made progress in standardizing biological cell count and fluorescent numbers.

To enable more accurate measurements in next year's study, it may be beneficial to provide measurement plates to teams to ensure that readings are obtained in a similar fashion. The silica beads also did not tend to stay in suspension, even when pipetted before measurement, which may be a problem for obtaining accurate measurements from this system. Overall though there are few complaints about the study--it was conducted very well considering all the different iGEM teams there are worldwide.