BU iGEM Training

From 2006.igem.org

== Editing the wiki ==

This website runs what is known a wiki. You may be familiar with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikipedia], which has grown into an enormously useful resource by virtue of the fact that anyone is allowed to edit it. Similarly, anyone--from any iGEM team--can edit pages on this wiki. In particular, you can and should edit pages here. We can use this wiki to plan and coordinate our project.

Here's how to get started:

• Bookmark our main iGEM wiki page at Boston University 2006
• If you haven't already, go to http://igem.org to get an account. You will be able to log in after you are approved.
• Log in.
• Visit BU Team Members (open the link in another tab or window) and notice the tab labeled 'edit' at the top. Click it.
• Add your full name next to your email address
• Add a description of the change you just made in the line at the bottom that says 'Summary'
• Click 'Show preview' and see whether you like the look of your changes. (If you need to make additional changes, you can make them at the bottom of the preview page)
• Click 'Save page' when you are done.
• Open the page on Using the wiki and on [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing wiki formatting instructions] in another tab or window
• Look for your username at the very top of the screen and click on it. Yes, there is an entire wiki page devoted to you. Represent us to the world by entering some information about yourself.
• Get to work, and have fun!

==iGEM Fundamentals== (make this into a whole page of its own)

Using Parts: bottom-up approach

Details of the existing classes of parts in the registry.

Using Parts: top-down approach

Case-studies of last year's iGEM teams to contextualize how parts are used and combined to practically build devices.

Engineering Principles

• Abstraction Hierarchy
• Information Hiding
• PoPS

Pitfalls

• ligand collisions
• degradation tags
• wobbly promoters & constitutive expression
• codon bias

Downloading and interpreting papers

Searching Pubmed

Who did what, and what might they do next: interpreting the author list

Saving and sharing the PDF and supplementary information

The gold mine: references

E. coli resources

Sequence management

Lab protocols

Logistics

ordering supplies, et cetera.

Reading material

Most team members have The Molecular Biology of the Cell from BE209. Another excellent resource is Genes and Signals by Ptashne and Gann.