Attributions

Team Members

Ali Tariq

Ali was the mathematical modeller for the team, responsible for all our mathematical modelling. Ali also helped with wetlab work on a day-to-day basis.

Emily Heath

Emily primarily worked in the lab, but also played a role with Human Practices. Emily was chief of competent cell making and liquid nitrogen retrieving.

Evie McShane

Evie worked in the lab, designed the banner for the team and helped orchestrate the design of the original logo. She also performed the InterLab study and took care of the plants.

Hannah Elliott

Hannah worked in the lab, mostly on the siRNA side of the project.

Lily Thomas

Lily was in charge of the Human Practices side of our project, and the first point of communication for our collaborations.

Ryan Coates

Ryan primarily worked in the lab on the reporter and promoter side of the project. He also designed the final logo and any other icons, coded our wiki, and helped with the biological variables in the modelling. He helped with the InterLab study and also carried out and analysed the bioinformatics side of the project. In addition, he ran the statistical analysis of the survey data using R.

Sophie Thomas

Sophie worked in the lab, mostly on the siRNA side of the project, but was also in charge of the safety aspect.

Team Supervisors

Dr. Geraint Parry

Geraint secured all the teams funding and gave the go-ahead for protocols. He was the person we first went to for advice or future steps in the project.

Dr. Daniel Pass

Mostly helped with the bioinformatics side of the project, creating the script 'ProbeTest.py' and helping to debug it. Dan attended most meetings too.

Jamie Long

Jamie was mostly repsonsible for the imaging side of our project, setting up the Photon Imager to read mCherry and eGFP outputs for our constructs.

Jack Bate

Jack was an adviser for wetlab work, helping to diagnose and debug problems when they arose. He was the person of contact if we needed extra equipment from the Murray Lab.

Everyone else

Of course, none of this would be possible without the help of a whole host of other people, so we would like to extend a huge thanks to:

Andrea Meyrick

For help with organising the Techniquest outreach event.

Deborah Barnett from Ysgol Bryn Elian

For help with organising the talk in the Sixth form that Emily did.

Dionne Oliver

For communications for our human practices.

Dr. Helen Woodfield

For help with our initial design ideas and feasibility.

Dr. Simon Scofield

For help with GUS reagents and the protocol for the altered GUS assay.

Dr. Thomas Woolley

For help with the mathematical modelling.

Fiona Wylie

For help with the organisation of outreach events and open days.

Hannah Blythyn, the Environment Minister of Wales

For communicating with us about our project for our Human Practices.

Hannah Thomas

For lending us her hot glue gun, essential for our 3D printed plant model.

Iain Perry

For help with 3D printing of our plant model and of the housing unit for the collaboration with WashU. He provided print details for this collaboration.

Jerry Alford

For communicating with us about our project for our Human Practices.

Jessica Antley

For communicating with us about our project for our Human Practices.

John Collins

For help with providing contacts for our Human Practices communication and research.

John Harrington

For lending us the book on aphid ecology, discussing our project, and discussions about WashUs 3D printed model.

Lab technicians within the School of Biosciences

For helping with washing glassware and waste disposal.

Matthew Butters

For help with early logo designs.

Miriam Knight

For communication about the impact of our project on bees, sparking an idea to test the off-target effects of our siRNAs.

Nigel Daily

For editing our article in the Welsh Bee Keepers Association magazine.

Plant health team of the Welsh Government

For communication about plant GM and our project.

Plant research group of Cardiff Biosciences

For listening to our draft presentation and providing feedback.

Sam Harbridge

For help with early logo designs.

Sarah Clinton

For taking the photos on our team page.

Sian Ashton

For providing contacts for the Techniquest event.

Staff in the Murray lab of Cardiff Biosciences

For providing some equipment like 1ml syringes, and listening to our draft presentation and providing feedback.

Tony Shaw, the WBKA President

For extensive communication about our project, and providing further contacts.

Warwick iGEM team (Kurt)

For help with insertion of external stylesheets into the Wiki.

WashU iGEM team

For help with navigation bar styling, and exchanging help and advice for each other's wikis.

All our sponsors, seen in our drop-up footer

For funding the project and making it feasible!

The institution

Does your institution teach an iGEM or synthetic biology course?

Not exactly. There is currently no iGEM or synthetic biology course as such, but some modules do mention iGEM (though not as core material). The closest module we have is part of the biochemical/genetics degree scheme and is Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. However, a new syllabus has recently been deployed, which does have more focus on synthetic biology with a more devoted module, but there is yet to be a whole course for synthetic biology.

When did you start this course?

Of the team members, the only person who took the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology module is Ryan Coates. This is a third year module, and the course started in September 2017, ending in December 2017.

Are the syllabus and course materials freely available online?

The course materials are not freely available online, though students who attend the module can access them freely, whenever they desire (including at least 2 years after the module has ended).

When did you start your brainstorming?

The team started brainstorming sometime in February 2018, when the initial members were accepted onto the team. This is when a basic idea was developed, which was literally as simple as "target the aphid symbiont" but with no more detail than that. Further developments came around June time after exams.

When did you start in the lab?

Lab work started on July the 9th, and lasted 10 weeks.

When did you start working on your project?

We started work on the project as a whole about a week before the lab work, when promoter sequences were ordered ready for the wetlab work to commence.