Brown

From 2006.igem.org

Brown iGEM team

We are looking for team funding for students to take part in the competition over the summer.

Tasks to do

-can somebody add the departments to our faculty sponsors please? you can google for these.
-can somebody link all the students to their usernames please?
-please sign up to write up a section.

Who's doing what

John - writing 2 parts of app.
Brendan - formatting application at end. please start asap, so we can insert the text when finished.
Victoria - overviewing the draft proposal and checking it runs together.
Megan - BDH link

Application

Brown iGEM Team 2006
International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition

Introduction

This summer a cross-disciplinary team of Brown students will enter the MIT based iGEM competition. The challenge is to design and implement a genetically engineered machine.

A new field; Synthetic Biology

Science is constantly in a state of flux and the lines between biology, math, physics and chemistry are continually being redrawn. In the last decade, the life sciences revolution has continued to grow, but a new type of biology is on the horizon, a biology that not only understands how DNA holds the information to construct biological machines; but a biology that calls on other fields and is able to model, design and synthesize these machines from A’s C’s T’s and G’s. This is the new field of Synthetic Biology.

The iGEM competition: where engineering meets biology

"Can simple biological systems be built from standard, interchangeable parts and operated in living cells? Or, is biology simply too complicated to be engineered in this way?(1)"

The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) is designed to answer this question. The challenge is to design and implement a machine capable of performing an engineered task, but in this case, the machines are transcribed from DNA sequences and the parts are RNA, proteins and cells. This interdisciplinary project bridges fields from biology through engineering and computer science and demonstrates how the future of science continues to cross disciplines.

Previous competition entries

Started in 2003, MIT students created biological oscillators coupled to fluorescent reporters. The summer of 2004 brought the first Synthetic Biology Competition. Student teams from five schools (Princeton, MIT, Caltech, UT Austin, and Boston University) and competed to build cellular state machines and counters. The teams gathered in early November to compare their results. The most graphic project was "photographic biofilm" that could capture an image.

In the summer of 2005, student teams from thirteen schools (Berkeley, Caltech, Cambridge UK, Davidson, ETH Zurich, Harvard, MIT, Oklahoma, Penn State, Princeton, Toronto, UCSF, and UT Austin) participated in the 2005 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. Later, during the first weekend of November, over 150 of these students, instructors, and PIs came together to share and celebrate their work.

The iGEM 2005 student projects displayed the designs of chemotaxis regulation systems, cell-cell genetic communications systems, cellular/biological wires, thermometers, biological sketch pads (drawing systems), cellular relay races, a digital counter, and many more.

At the core of these activities is the notion of a standard biological part that is well specified and able to be paired with other parts into subassemblies and whole systems. Once the parameters of these parts are determined and standardized, simulation and design of genetic systems will become easier and more reliable.

Student led research The main competition takes place over the summer with students spending their time designing novel engineered parts, modeling biochemical reactions and then implementing these designs in the lab. Here at Brown we already have support and offers of lab space from Gary Wessel in MCB, Marc Tatar in EEB and offers from a number of faculty ranging from engineering, computer science and physics to join a multidisciplinary cross-campus faculty advisory board. This mentoring board will meet each week in order for students to report progress and to discuss ideas. The project gives students the opportunity to become directly involved with research at Brown. Previous entries in the iGEM competition have been published in Nature. [Engineering E.Coli to see light, 2005]

High-profile competition

Future years

Industry sponsors

Faculty mentoring team
Gary Wessel - Professor of Biology
Marc Tatar - Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Cross campus faculty support
David Targan - Dean for Science Programs
Karen Marie Haberstroh - Assistant Professor of Engineering
Jim Valles - Professor of Physics
Sorin Istrail - Professor of Computer Science
Marjorie Thompson - Associate Dean of Biological Sciences

Potential support (TBC)
Nicola Neretti
Alex Brodsky

Why should Brown sponsor the team?

What funding do we request?
Break down: $28,000 8 x undergraduate summer support stipends: $3500 x 8 $4,000 DNA Synthesis costs $7,000 Lab reagents $1,000 Travel costs to MIT events, invited talk expenses Total $40,000

'References' 1)Tom Knight 2005, iGEM: International Genetically Engineered Machine competitionshttp://icampus.mit.edu/projects/iGem.shtml
2)Chris Voigt 2005, Synthetic biology: Engineering Escherichia coli to see light, Nature 438, 441-442 (24 November 2005) 3)

Members

John Cumbers - Graduate Student Computational Biology
Annie Gao
Brendan Hickey
Elaine Tran
Elena Helman
Jamie Lemon - Undergraduate Student Biology
Julia Heneghan
Julie Spector
Kara Neergaard
Megan Schmidt - Undergraduate Student Human Biology
Nicholas Halden
Peter Goldstein - Undergraduate Student Computational Biology
Peter Rosenthal
Rahul Nene
Smita Gupta
Victoria Lattanzi

Links

[http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/iGem.shtml iGEM overview]
[http://2006.igem.org/Main_Page iGEM Wiki]