Difference between revisions of "Team:Macquarie Australia/Notebookdry"

Revision as of 07:03, 9 October 2018

This week was an introduction to iGEM and our bootcamp month began. The team met one another and skill sets were determined.
Fundamental molecular biology knowledge was taught about the differences between synthetic biology and genetic engineering.
The team had a look through past Macquarie University team’s wiki pages to get a better understanding of the competition.
Prof. Robert Willows explained the chlorophyll biosynthesis pathway and sent articles for us to read over.
The main ideas and aims of the project were discussed as well as molecular knowledge, fundraising ideas and outreach opportunities. Our primary aim is to work on the addition of the chlorophyll biosynthesis pathway into E.coli with the potential to incorporate photosystem II. Research was done on these areas.

Two additional team members, Amanda and Ken arrived into the team.
Email address, facebook, twitter and instagram accounts created for us to form connections with researchers and other iGEM teams.
Michael Gibbs taught codon optimisation techniques.
Prof. Robert Willows gave us more articles to read through and several students conducted their own research.
A primer was designed for our project.

A rough plan was created for the parts list with its current progress.
Made a plan for when people are available over the semester.
Work on the wiki began: A basic website design was created, code for interactive menu bar was created.
Zoe and Josip worked with Prof. Robert Willows on mathematical modelling.
Preliminary research was conducted on pathway enzymes and substrates.
A cryptic crossword was completed as a group.

The name ‘ChIVes- Chlorophyll induced vesicles’ was designed and chosen for our team.
Interlab data was submitted to the committee.
Twitter was redone and facebook continually got more likes. We also kept uploading to social media platforms.
The team created several polls to determine when people were available to meet up through the semester.
Safety form submitted.
The project description was created and submitted on time.
The team skyped with iGEM Tec de Monterrey from Mexico.

Started work on the wiki page in which a a logo was created, etc.

This week our focus was on dry lab. We arranged ourselves into dry lab and wet lab groups.
The fundraising team began work on the sponsorship document which would give them an overview of our project and sponsorship levels.
Facebook likes continued to grow and we got more followers on instagram.
During our weekly meeting Prof. Robert Willows came up with an idea about Human practices which involves customer discovery and using it to get information out of interviews.

Irene and Renee presented at Macquarie University’s Open Day as part of the human outreach activity and spoke about iGEM and synthetic biology to potential medical science and biology students.
A new logo was created for our team.
The human practices team spoke to Dr. Paul Jaschke about the process of customer discovery and how we can potentially use it to interview for human practices and to create a customer discovery tool kit. He also arranged a meeting for us with Lynne Teo, who has worked with and explained customer discovery previously.

This week we chose our track, New Applications.
As part of our human outreach activities we spoke at the UNSW symposium. We had the opportunity to formulate and explain our project to a large group of people and to speak to another iGEM team about our journeys.
Our first meeting for human practices occurred. We met with Andrew Care to talk about his work. We also emailed several academics regarding potential interviews.
This week the a few members met with Dr. Andrew Gilbert, the general manager of Bioplatforms Australia to discuss sponsorship opportunities. We provided him with the sponsorship document we created and spoke about our project.

Meeting with Monica Espinosa Gomez to discuss her work with yeast using synthetic biology and metabolic engineering.
Angus and Renee met up with Dr. Alfonso Garcia. They interviewed him based on his work synthesising and applying mesoporous materials for drug delivery.
The Go fund me account was created for the team to raise money from friends and family.
Skype call was arranged between NTU and Macquarie for a potential collaboration.
Our human practices team created a survey and sent a link out to other iGEM teams to gather information about how they are gaining knowledge for human practices.
Interviewed Dr. Birado Llorente which gave us first starter point for customer discovery as he gave us some uses for vesicles.
We had an interview with Dr. Tom Williams about his work on the yeast 2.0 project, and and work on proteasomes. He suggested potential uses and impact of our vesicles.
Associate Professor Anwar Sunna gave us a list of academics to email.
Interview with Hugh Goold

Granted sponsorship from Andrew Gilbert from Bioplatforms and Labcyte.
A meeting with Lynne Teo regarding her work using and teaching customer discovery. She explained the entire process from start to finish and how to analyse our data once we have completed the interviews.
Interview with Prof. Nico Bruns regarding his work with protein cages containing nucleotide-binding polymers for drug delivery.
Interviewed Dr. Lucinda McRobb, she gave us some contacts in the medical and protein fields.
Dr. Joanne Tan was not available for an interview but sent her a document to complete. Helped us find potential uses for our project.
Created a results table for interviews.
Set up checklist to keep track of who we’ve contacted for the survey and who has filled it out.
Work on our wiki began with Karl creating several graphics for the website.
Budget document is completed and can easily be altered to better represent current prices and exchange rates Safety form completed and submitted.

Irene, Nick and Renee took part in an online virtual conference ran by the iGEM Abu Dhabi team. 6 different iGEM teams met up and quickly spoke about their project for 5 minutes or so and asked questions to help other teams with their progress.
The abstract for our project was created.
Interviewed Dr Lisa Goldsmith who provided a key insight into protein purification techniques and issues that arise. Additionally she provided the team with feedback on our project and the potential impact of our project.

This week the Boston team was chosen. 6 team members applied and they did a little pitch, talking about the work they have completed for iGEM and why they deserve to go to Boston. We had enough funding to send everyone who wanted to go to Boston.
Ken and Renee had an interview over skype with Dr. Brendan Orner who spoke about his previous work using protein cages that self assemble. He explained some of the issues working with vesicles and provided us with additional academics to interview.
Meeting robyn linder (Irene & Angus & Hamish) Talked more on the problems of protein work with Robyn’s previous protein work, talk more on the ways on applications on how our ChIVes may impact the industry
Interview with Shabarni Gupta who explained her work with proteins in her pHD and gave us some suggestions for our project.
Interlab write up began.
Lots of work on the wiki was completed. The design was re-done with a focus on making it professional and easy to read.

Hamish, Renee and Nick had a meeting with Malvin Eutick, the CEO of Phebra pharmaceuticals. He told us about his company and some issues he has in relation to upscaling drugs for industrial use. He also gave us an insight into some new methods that can be used for our vesicles.
Interviewed Dr. Suzanne Mithieux at the University of Sydney. Talked more on Suzanne’s work on elastin, and how our product may help in purification and isolation especially enzymes, however no further contacts were given.
Interviewed Assoc. Prof. Sierin Lim meeting via Skype. She spoke about her work on protein cages and their applications.
The schedule for the presentations in Boston came out. We learnt that the Macquarie University iGEM team will be presenting in the first time slot on Thursday in room 207 at 9am.
Group going to Boston went to meet with the university to book flights and accommodation. Organised of our wet lab collaboration with Singapore.
In terms of the wiki the footer was created, the background colour was figured out and a new header was made. T-shirts ordered.
Team building time at Strike

Angus and Ken had a meeting with Dr. Jenny Vo in which they learnt about Dr. Vo’s experience in the biologics industry and her experience in drug discovery.
Prof. Jan C. M. van Hest meeting Thursday- 30 mins
Team page and human outreach page was up on the wiki and functional.
Write up of the safety component, customer discover toolkit, attributions, journals and interlab of the wiki began.

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