Meeting Minutes for April 4, 2006

From 2006.igem.org

Present: Jamie, Azime, John, Angela, Bo, Brendan, Peter, Jason, Jamie, Victoria Elena

Journal Club Presentation

Engineering a pathway in E. Coli for turpenoids

by Brendan and Peter

• turponoids - organic compound for making steroids
• antimalarial medicine, etc. (anticancer, antihallucenogenic)
• purified from plants, extracted from plants and then synthesized – limits
• pathway from yeast and put into E. Coli
• PCR created 3 mutant pathways, point mutations which inserted into E. Coli
• 2 of the sequences worked; combined the two (beginning of one and end of another)
• isoprene 5C structure; double, single, double building blocks
• IPP is inhibitor that halts cell growth (for MAP)
• amorphodyein synthase consumes IPP, increases levels of mevalonate acid without halting cell growth
• pathway doesn’t exist in nature; this pathway 10-300 fold increase in production
• head of synthetic bio department of Berkeley (Gates Foundation gave lots of funding)
• Melavonatic → MevP → MevPP → IPP &→ DMAPP

genes: -ERG12 -ERG8 -MVD -1d1 = these genes are in plants but not in E. Coli, so codon optimization corrects for differences in codons between bacteria and plants

• then stepped back to beginning: melavonatic not a good precursor, so XYZ converts acetyl CoA (naturally occurring in cell and a lot *cheaper) into Melavonatic Acid (which is hard to get)

concerned about product yield and amounts of cells, so another step was making sure that [IPP] kept low à keeping cells alive as we put in genes, etc.

Notes:

• forward papers the week before to John so that he can make copies of diagrams, etc.
• there will be workshops at beginning of summer about PCR, etc.
• Ideas: get some more detail (make a concise description of) and let the faculty know about them and get their opinions on whether they are viable, linked to current faculty research:
  1. John: cell division counter – when (yeast) cells aging, different colors emitted from fluorochrome (like binary signal, red=1, blue =2, green = 3, etc. counts up to 32) if besides bacteria, takes longer to take up; bacteria, e.coli overnight; Harvard last year tried doing this; first round fine, but second on, harder; link color to cdk when transcribed, produced fluorochrome, activator and binds to promoter region of next and then repressor on next represses color from first one while another activator produces another color
  2. Julie: bacteria producing alkanes – products poisoning cells (alcohols, alkanes that act as detergents on membrane); talk to Dept of Energy? (speaker) – Prof Moulton
  3. analog devices: transistors scalable super computing; the more the cells grow, the more computational power you have; producing something useful is impractical; quorum sensing? like Minesweeper - Jamie
  4. bio sensors and actuators – live inside body and transmit info out; bio sensors sense the signals and actuators would amplify getting info of cell out (more complex than on/off); possibly like tumors
  5. free radical reporter - Victoria
  6. chemical detector – assembly line from input to receiver (like Berkeley team) Annie
  7. artificial organelle
  8. microbes that maintain/fix environment
  9. bacterial eye/radar – emit light (through reporter) and if reflects back, send out signal

ACTIONS

March 14, 2006

• Victoria will go to SAO to get info about table for ADOCH
• possibly also a web page/link to Brown iGEM
• have a site for prospective students to see who we are, as well as our contact info
• also, for everyone: think of ways to gain more attention

• Everyone: create a section on the wiki for the category you are overseeing

• Create a community portal:
  • serve as a site that can be linked possibly from admissions page
  • emphasizing that we are cross-disciplinary undergraduates performing research at Brown University, even several freshmen involved
  • have our slightly more colorful biolographical infos attached

• Possible ideas for our project?

• Victoria/Megan doing the Journal Club presentation next week.

March 21, 2006

Come up with an idea by first meeting after Spring Break

Journal Club Presenters: (in order of presentation): talk to faculty about them (we have 19!!!) send out papers to faculty early just to make sure.

• Peter and Brendan 4/4

• Angela and Annie 4/11

• Kara and Jessie 4/18

• Katherine and John 4/25

April 4, 2006

Journal projects for future:

• Angela and Annie 4/11
• Kara and Jessie 4/18
• Katherine and John 4/25
• Jason and Azime 5/2
• Elena and Jamie 5/9

Remember to decide a week ahead of time so that faculty can be contacted and help with your paper. Also remember that you can email John diagrams, etc. so that he can make copies for everyone at the Journal Club meeting.

Make concise descriptions of our ideas to send to faculty