Attributions

This project required commitment and dedication from many parties. We appreciate the assistance and contributions of the individuals who went above and beyond to mentor us, educate us, and troubleshoot with us.

Team Members

Sarah Caldwell: Plasmid mini preps and troubleshooting, protocols, Wiki. Business plan.

Ashley Del Rose: Public outreach, seeking sponsors, lab work. Building business model.

Casper Gate: Protein modeling for mutation simulations, root isolation, data collection. Contacting farmers.

Jordan Lee: Human practices, seeking sponsors and collaborations, environmental impact assessment.

Julian Liber: Plant care, endophyte collection and identification, transformation of endophytes, lab work.

Jessica Schultz: Human practices, seeking sponsors and collaborations. Building business model.

Erin Uhelski: Safety forms, endophyte isolation and characterization, plant maintenance, and outreach.

Sophia Viola: Protein modeling for mutation simulations, experiment planning, plasmid work. Treasurer of our funds.

Mentors

Michaela TerAvest: Donated lots of plasmids and reagents and helped troubleshoot plasmid work.

Danny Ducat: Helped us troubleshoot PCRs, gave input on regulatory systems, developed idea for persistence assay. Donated lots of cool board games for the meetup!

Bjoern Hamberger: Donated lab space, helped with project idea development. Main synthetic biology advisor.

Tim Whitehead: Donated plasmid with promoter, terminator, and GFP. Guidance on enzyme design and assays.

Laboratory Support

Dr. Greg Bonito, MSU Plant and Soil Sciences Professor: Donated lab space and equipment. Helped us with culture collection. Was our GLBRC PI.

Dr. Pedro Beschoren da Costa, MSU Plant and Soil Sciences Post-Doctoral Researcher: Endophyte isolation, collected switchgrass from Kellogg Biological Station, and helped with persistence assays.

Dr. Wajid Waheed Bhat, MSU Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Postdoctoral Fellow: Helped with plasmid troubleshooting and transformation as well as protein experiments.

Davis Mathieu, MSU Plant and Soil Sciences Graduate Student: Assisted with transformation troubleshooting and attended weekly meetings to give helpful input.

Wiki Help

None of our team members had previous experience with HTML or CSS, making this Wiki quite the challenge to code. Luckily, the code for all iGEM Wiki sites is open-source unless specified otherwise. We thank the 2017 Manchester iGEM team for their open-source CSS style sheets. This included a Bootstrap page, among others. We wouldn't have been able to design this site without their CSS and HTML wizardry.

General Support

Cassie Veselovsky, Lansing Public Library
She helped us host a public outreach event for children at the Lansing Public Library by providing the location, providing some supplies for the outreach activities, and advertising for the event.

Colleen Noel, Monsanto Learning Center
She organized a tour for our team at the Monsanto Learning Center in Monmouth, Illinois.

Eva Weihl, East Lansing Public Library
She helped us host a public outreach event for children at the East Lansing Public Library by providing the location, providing some supplies for the outreach activities, and advertising for the event, including making an event flyer.

Jessica Wright, Michigan State 4H Outreach
She prepared the educational garden plot for our plants in the MSU Horticulture Gardens, and was our point of contact for the MSU Horticulture Gardens 25th Birthday Bash.

Katie Brandt, Michigan State Student Organic Farm
She participated in a phone interview, and shared her opinions about our project and synthetic biology in general.

Laura Zeller, Impression 5 Science Center

Lisa Stelzner, Impression 5 Science Center

Michaela Balzer, Impression 5 Science Center

Michele Brussow, Impression 5 Science Center

Dr. Neil Bowlby, Michigan State Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
He assisted with laboratory training by providing a week-long workshop that taught the team members basic laboratory techniques, and principles of biochemistry.

Troy Coziahr, Monsanto Learning Center Manager
He lead the tour of the Monsanto Learning Center in Monmouth, Illinois, and offered his perspective on our project and synthetic biology in general, specifically in a business context.

Project Support

Dr. Arjun Krishnan, Michigan State Biochemistry Professor

Edward Hart, Idaho National laboratory

Dr. Jeff Carter-Johnson, Michigan State College of Law

Dr. Jennifer Carter-Johnson, Michigan State College of Law

Dr. Kristin Parent, Michigan State Biochemistry Professor

Dr. Paul Thompson, Michigan State Chair in Agricultural, Food, and Community Ethics

Dr. Rebecca Grumet, Michigan State Horticulture Professor

Dr. Robert Last, Michigan State Plant Biosciences Professor

Dr. Andre Velasquez, Michigan State Plant Research Laboratory

Robin Rosenbaum, Plant Industry Manager at Michigan Department of Agriculture

Sarah Hogg, Graphic Designer

Project Timeline

Michigan State University does not teach an iGEM course, nor does it teach synthetic biology courses at the undergraduate level. Our team was assembled in mid February, and we immediately begin having weekly one-hour-long meetings to brainstorm ideas for our project. The final topic for our project was decided in the first week of April after presenting three of our best ideas to interested faculty and students at MSU, and receiving their feedback. We chose the topic by voting among the eight team members. Lab work, modeling, human practices, and wiki editing began on May 21st and continued full-time by all eight team members until July 27th. Part-time project work continued until October 24, when our team headed to Boston for the 2018 iGEM Giant Jamboree.

Finally, we'd like to extend a thank you to everyone who helped us along the way!

Team:MichiganState/Attributions