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<div class = "event" id="event1"> Ampacet Visit - 7/3/18 </div> | <div class = "event" id="event1"> Ampacet Visit - 7/3/18 </div> | ||
<div class = "entry" id="entry1"> On July 3rd, two members of our team spoke with a representative from Ampacet in Terre Haute about our project. As a plastics expert, Dr. Jared Tatum explained the processes that are done at Ampacet. While discussing our project, Dr. Tatum offered the team PET plastic samples for our experiments. He will be giving us pure PET bottles, PET pellets, and PET powder. After explaining our experimental protocol ideas, Dr. Tatum advised us to change our procedures. Our original idea had been to let the bacteria eat the pellets as their only carbon source and observe the change. However, Dr. Tatum advised that we use the powder instead of the pellets because of the greater surface area to volume ratio. Additionally, he informed the team about the effect that humidity plays on the characteristics of pure PET. He encouraged us to monitor the humidity during our experiments and note any change in results based on a difference in humidity. Because pure PET is so susceptible to changes based on humidity, PET used in disposable water bottles contain a great amount of additives to stabilize the plastic and ensure long shelf life. Based on this new information, we began designing an experiment that would determine the effects of these additives on the ability of the bacteria to breakdown the PET. </div> | <div class = "entry" id="entry1"> On July 3rd, two members of our team spoke with a representative from Ampacet in Terre Haute about our project. As a plastics expert, Dr. Jared Tatum explained the processes that are done at Ampacet. While discussing our project, Dr. Tatum offered the team PET plastic samples for our experiments. He will be giving us pure PET bottles, PET pellets, and PET powder. After explaining our experimental protocol ideas, Dr. Tatum advised us to change our procedures. Our original idea had been to let the bacteria eat the pellets as their only carbon source and observe the change. However, Dr. Tatum advised that we use the powder instead of the pellets because of the greater surface area to volume ratio. Additionally, he informed the team about the effect that humidity plays on the characteristics of pure PET. He encouraged us to monitor the humidity during our experiments and note any change in results based on a difference in humidity. Because pure PET is so susceptible to changes based on humidity, PET used in disposable water bottles contain a great amount of additives to stabilize the plastic and ensure long shelf life. Based on this new information, we began designing an experiment that would determine the effects of these additives on the ability of the bacteria to breakdown the PET. </div> | ||
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+ | <div class = "event" id="event3"> Skype Call with Michigan State University iGEM - 7/9/18 </div> | ||
+ | <div class = "entry" id="entry3"> On July 9th, the modeling and lab section of our team held a Skype conference with the Michigan State University team. During the Midwest Meetup, they showed interest in collaborating with us on lab and modeling aspects. We learned from the Skype meeting that they needed help creating a mathematical model and protein visualization model for their active site mutagenesis of ACC Deaminase. As our team had skills in creating mathematical models, we offered to help them create a system of differential equations to describe their system’s kinetics and genetics. The protein visualization was not something that we were very familiar with, so they decided to pursue other venues for help on that. In return, they offered to run a couple of our experiments involving their scanning electron microscope, as the one in our lab is not as sophisticated. After the call, they followed up with research articles with information we requested as necessary for building the model. We hope to have another call to discuss our results and coordinate our needs for the scanning electron microscope.</div> | ||
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Revision as of 15:16, 18 July 2018