Team:Consort Alberta/notebook

Our Notebook

   Introduction      Meetings   

Lab Work     Workshops

Introduction...

     The following notes are of our daily log book that was kept up throughout the year - the day to day activities, challenges, and solutions we come across while having our meetings or doing our lab work. Our lab work notes include the set protocols that we did and when, how, and why we did them. All of these notes are of all team member's work from several different points in time, combined together to give a full scope of what we did this year.

Meetings...

    September 16th: 3:30-4:15… Met the team from last year and the new member. We discussed the project idea that is continuing from last year's group (See last year's wiki for more information), and what synthetic biology and genetic engineering mean. We looked at a video about synthetic biology and a few other sites. Last year's Consort iGEM Team webpage was reviewed, as well as some of the other competition teams, and we looked through some of their wikis.

    September 30th: 3:30-4:30… We are getting a new Thermo-Cycler (PCR). The one we're getting is the BioRad PTC 200 (with 96 wells, like the old one, and has a heated lid). Along with new micro-pipettes (designed to measure things out in microliters). We further discussed other lab equipment that we may have to purchase. Looked over the Central Dogma of Biology, along with how different kinds of lab equipment work.

    October 7th: 3:30-4:15… Checked out other wikis for ideas for ours, and saved some links that we could refer back to and look at for inspiration.

    October 21st: 3:30-4:00… We are planning on going to present the iGEM presentation to the Consort Lions Club on November 21st to get financial and community support. We discussed who else we could talk to about support and sponsorship too, and came up with a short list of people or businesses we could contact.

    November 18th: 3:30-5:00… We looked at the iGEM poster and determined who we need to contact for the BioBricks and supplies we need for our project. The new students also looked at the process of DNA systems and about ribosomes with RNA.

    November 25th: 3:30-4:30… Darren and Sharon from the Consort Lion's Club presented our grant to us on behalf of the Consort Lions, as well as Sharon presented a second cheque on behalf of Ronwood Enterprises. On another topic, if things go well, we'll be submitting 2 BioBricks to the registry at the end of the year.

    December 2nd: 3:30-4:00… A snow day at school, so a few iGEM students hung out in the science lab and began planning our Wiki based on what we wanted, what we saw that was cool on other Wikis, and what we needed for requirements. New member to the team: Alex Coulton joined late, and so we updated him on all the science and details. We are now a team of 8 students.

    January 6th: 3:30-4:00… We received an amazing grant from Alberta Innovates who was impressed with our application, and now plus other donations. We each will kick in a potential $200 for the iGEM trip, and we are each responsible for meals and souvenirs. Today we discussed what are website will look like - Nikayla is going to take candid photos for alongside the bios within the next meeting or two, and with the help of Kris and Austin will work on the technical side of the site. We're going to write the bios so they are ready for the next meeting. Next day at lunch: determined about 200 words for the bio, including favourite Canadian stereotype. We're also going to do a "very Canadian" photo at lunch depicting a barbeque, shorts and t-shirts, and maple syrup… in the snow.

    January 13th: 3:30-5:30… Did our photo today… it was… cold. Going to have a workshop on February the 8th at the lab here at the school. Today we compared resources and website uploading options for the Wiki. We might go with OpenBexi. Going to come up with a shopping list for any supplies and such we need for the web lab.

    January 27th: 3:30-4:00… Workshop in Consort planning in progress - date is being shuffled around… not sure when or how it's going to work yet?

    February 10th: 3:30-4:30… Confirmed workshop date and time: February 23rd from 8:30am-5pm. A two people from the U of C are coming, and we are going to go over most of the procedures that we will be doing specifically. We tried downloading OpenBEXI to use on our website, but it's wonky and didn't work… so Kris contacted a student at Lethbridge to see what they used, and they used Microsoft Dreamspark - I think we'll try that out.

    February 23rd: We had our Consort iGEM Workshop of the year with David Lloyd and Hamika Dastidar from 8:30-5:00. (See this tab for more information)

    March 3rd: 3:30-4:00… Mr. Bourassa was gone, but we got all of our pages for our wiki drawn out as well as our main idea of our team descriptions and project info done. We hope to start experimenting with the website program soon!

    March 24th: 3:30-5:00… Discussed more fund raising, and got a few replies back from the letters we sent out. Any new modelling and software ideas due for this Wednesday. Protocols to follow once we get our DNA… A meeting to follow on Wednesday and Friday at lunch.

    April 14th: 3:30-5:00… Fund raising follow-up - we received gracious grants from the Veteran Lions Club, and Under Pressure. Maybe do them a presentation? Sam conducted an interview with T&E Pumps for the Human Practices portion of our website. Put Carla's Stringari as a credits for the logo and website. Alberta Innovates credits too, and we forwarded our articles to their contact as well. We also need to pick up supplies in Calgary! Once we get them, we should be able to start our plasmid switches and we need to schedule times and dates for our lab work. For flights - need names for everyone as they are on the passport plus our birthday.

    April 27th: We had our second workshop of the year, with Emily Hicks and Robert Mayall from 8:30-5:00. (See this tab for more information)

    April 28th: 3:30-5:00… More fundraiser follow-up and general part ordering and organization discussions. Website is well in progress, and a new modelling software is downloaded and begun to be experimented with.

    May 5th: 3:30-4:30… We will get some parts in later this week so we organized the cabinets. Returned our incubator to the Kindergarteners too. Arranging to go to a workshop in Calgary at the end of the month, seeing how that will go.

    May 12th: 3:30-4:30… On May 8th Kris happened to fix the autoclave… then we ran into some… uh… issues with the apparently heat-resistant bottles that we put into the sterilizing machine… they kinda melted, but they're sterilized! Website is in further progress, other teams are starting to do theirs a little too, but we are overall ahead of the game. Workshop on Saturday May 24th, and we will leave right after school to head to Calgary. We booked our geekStarter tickets and got them ready too.

    May 19th: 3:30-4:30… General meeting, getting ready to make some LB Broth and going over procedures. For making the LB Broth, see THE LAB WOrk PORTION HERE.

    May 20th: 3:30-4:30… Made LB Broth with no complications. Also worked on modelling and website afterwards until 6:00. The beginning phases of mathematical modelling are appearing after the extra help from Robert Mayall.

    May 21st: 3:30-5:00… Took LB Broth out of the autoclave today. Did some agar plates (SOB) and we are growing cultures overnight on the shaker table. Made 3 plates - two from the 2014 distribution and one from the 2013. SEE PROCEDURES HERE

    May 26th: 3:30-6:00… Today we made more plates from the starter kit and grow more E. Coli as the last ones didn't grow terribly well, and tomorrow at lunch and after school we are going to rehydrate the reporter genes, and hopefully transform into E. Coli and make them competent. And then culture and grow them. We made 6 plates, and got together the materials and procedures that we need for tomorrow. We've planned a mini-prep for Wednesday. Also worked on modelling afterwards.

    May 28th: 3:30-5:00… We have our E. Coli successfully cultured and growing on the agar plates overnight, to be checked out in the morning.

    May 29th: 3:30-4:30… We used a spectrophotometer to get an optimal density reading on our culture tubes. LINK HERE.

    June 2nd: 3:30-4:30… Getting prepared for our next procedures, and planning a second human practices interview with Dave Bruha, and potentially other people. Did a mini-prep today with our cultures.

    June 4th: 3:30-5:00… Worked on some modelling and generally getting ready for a restriction digest. Also completed the interview with Dave Bruha of the Consort Enterprise as a part of our Human Practices portion of our project.

    June 5th: 3:30-5:00... We used a spectrophotometer to get an optimal density reading of our newly growth cultures… SEE LINK

    June 6th: 3:30-5:00... At lunch today we did a ligation, followed by a transformation of the plasmids into the cells after school. SEE PROCEDURE HERE. We're letting them sit over the weekend, and then see if they glow red on Monday.

    June 9th: 3:30-5:30… Our RFP cells didn't glow red, and we determined that something went wrong during the transformation stage - we are going to try it again and see what exactly went wrong.

    June 10th: 3:30-5:30… We finished making the competent cells then doing the transformation using a different protocol SEE HERE, and there was a two hour incubation before we put them on plates for further incubation

    June 11th: 3:30-5:30… After re-doing our protocols, we did another optical density test SEE HERE, and got much more optimal results, which may be to blame for the lack of RFP transformation.

    June 12th: 3:30-6:00… Got several more protocols in place and reviewed our handbooks for tomorrow.

Lab Work...

- Partner owner of the major oil company T&E Pumps. Elaine gracefully Dave concluded.

Workshops...

    Our presentations to