Difference between revisions of "Team:Lambert GA/Human Practices"

Georgia Tech Meeting

Lambert iGEM met with Dr. Mark Styczynski, Dr. Bhamla, and Ms. Monica McNerney from Georgia Tech to discuss the 2018 project. During the meeting, the Lambert iGEM team decided to focus on a toehold switch construct, designed to detect cholera and parasitic eggs.

Dominican Republic Trip

Several Lambert iGEM alumni and current members traveled to the Dominican Republic, specifically the city of Hato Mayor, to work on a water filtration project. We also met with Dr. Rainyer, who works for the Ministry of Health; he emphasized the lack of current mechanisms available to detect waterborne diseases in water sources. A majority of the residents did not have access to clean, drinking water and buying bottled water was a financial burden. After informing him about our project, Dr. Rainyer stated that having an efficient, inexpensive detection tool would be extremely useful in the field.

Open House

Lambert iGEM presented their 2018 project to local business owners and professionals in the field. This presentation outlined the accomplishments and goals for this year’s project. After the presentation, the audience provided suggestions to enhance the project. Overall, the 2018 open house allowed members to focus on critical aspects of the project that were missed during the initial planning session in January.

Lambert High School Administrator Presentation

Lambert iGEM presented their project in front of Lambert’s administrators and teachers. We received feedback on our project and design.

Doll Kits

Lambert iGEM recognizes the significance of disproportionate demographics in the biotechnology and the scientific community, especially with women. This problem is largely due to the lack of exposure young girls have in the STEM field. Lambert iGEM discovered that most lab kits for children were marketed towards boys rather than girls. As a result, the team created a doll kit specifically designed for elementary-aged girls to increase exposure and interest in biotechnology. These kits include basic laboratory materials such as pipettes and beakers as well as Lambert iGEM’s very own 3DFuge. This kit allows girls to explore upon the biotechnology field, defying conventional standards and significantly increasing interest in the science field. Placing the possibility of a successful career as a scientist in the minds of young girls has immeasurable value to the confidence of the girls themselves as well as the scientific community as a whole.

Summer Camp

Lambert iGEM created a 3 day camp for rising 8th and 9th graders from the local middle schools, where the team taught them about biotechnology. The team gave lectures over basic content in biology and labs based on biotechnology principles. The participants began the camp not knowing much about science, but by the end, they understood the importance of biotechnology and the different aspects in it. The Lambert iGEM team ran this camp to expand the knowledge of the students in our community about biotechnology in hope that they will consider it a career option.

Day One Challenge

The AI Day One Challenge is a high school state competition sponsored by Tech Square Atlanta to encourage divergent thinking and determine the future of technology such as Artificial Intelligence. High School teams across the state of Georgia were encouraged to propose a solution to the challenge question: “How do you propose we use artificial intelligence by 2030 to fundamentally alter how we address one of these societal needs: education, health, or sustainability?” Lambert iGEM’s software team proposed our machine learning model “CALM” (Cholera Artificial Learning Model).

CALM predicts cholera outbreaks a month in advance and informs healthcare organizations and civilians in developing nations to allocate resources in advance provide a timely solution to an incoming outbreak. Our CALM team won the overall grand prize, top public vote, runner-up in best pitch video bringing $2000 in awards. On May 5th, our CALM team was invited to the AI Day One Summit in Tech Square Atlanta where we presented our idea to a panel of technology experts who gave us feedback and connected us to public health professionals and machine learning model experts. This challenge has allowed Lambert iGEM to connect both the scientific and technology communities in order to make solution for the ongoing cholera outbreaks.

Thirst Project

Collaboration with Georgia State iGEM Team

Lambert iGEM participated in the Atlanta Science Festival to increase the public’s knowledge on synthetic biology. Through collaboration with the Georgia State iGEM team, Lambert iGEM helped children create art with micropipettes and color dye. This experiment helped spark interests in science.

UGA Collaboration (Summer Camp, Interlab)

The Lambert iGEM team invited the UGA team to help us run our summer camp for the rising 8th and 9th graders. We had 5 members from the team who came over to assist with the camp.

Georgia State Collaboration (Sign Language)

June 12-13, 2018 A few members of the Lambert iGEM team participated in a summer camp hosted by GSU held for deaf students in the Atlanta area. This camp walked students through labs such as DNA barcoding and gel electrophoresis, which were meant to give students with disabilities the opportunity to gain experience in the field of synthetic biology. This camp was a continuation of GSU’s previous project in which they created new signs in ASL, in order to create a larger science-based vocabulary for deaf students.