Brown:March142006

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Contents

Meeting Minutes for March 14, 2006

Assignment of roles

Community Maker - Nick, Megan

Notetaker/Organizer (Secretary) - Angela

Journal Club Coordinator - Elena

Fundraising/PR

  • Julie: Fundraising, Sheldon
  • Brendan: PR
  • Elaine: helping both

Faculty Liaison - Victoria

Wiki Development - Peter

Research - Annie, Sheldon

"Benevolent Dictator" =) - John

Commercialization Potential (patents, etc)

Industry Laison

We have lab space in JWW!!!

Meeting Minutes for March 21, 2006

Present: John, Kara, Angela, Annie, Jessie, Peter, Brendan, Katherine, Victoria, Megan

Journal Club Presentation

Construction of a Genetic Toggle Switch in E. Coli

by Victoria and Megan

  • purpose: to integrate theory and experiment by constructing and testing a synthetic, bistable gene circuit (Toggle switch) based on the predictions of a simple mathematical model
  • integrate (mathetic) theory and (biology) experiment
  • mathematical models supposed to predict how much transcribed, testing expected outcomes
  • took a switch that self-regulates and has inducer (heat, chemical) that starts
  • prediction was wrong due to gene variability
  • simplest, as few reagents as possible better
  • specialized promoters
  • ribozyme binding sites, harnessed in plasmid; ensure that they are turned into proteins individually
  • genetic engineering (memory device) insert into something that you would want to be turned on for a long time
  • registry of biological parts at MIT; biological switch, wire linked together (electronic diagramà biological diagram

2005 iGEM project summaries:

UCSF: Kara; genetic circuit of bacteria to respond to temperature gradient, analog vs. digital

Toronto: Angela; Cell See-Us Thermometer and Bacterial Etch-a-Sketch; used mRFP and GFP didn’t have a result

Berkeley: John; cell-cell communicator, send out genomes to other bacteria via a specific pore (channel) and the other bacteria would send something back when it received that message

Harvard: Peter; bio-sketch; use UV pen to write on bacteria, use GFP mutation as reporter; not so much a toggle switch as a one way switch; used heat to “erase”; didn’t work

Caltech: Annie; detect caffeine in solution; YFP and GFP high concentration of caffeine would repress GFP and YFP would glow; if decaf, YFP would be repressed and GFP would grow; if medium, then both would be present.

Meeting Minutes for April 4, 2006

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

Journal Club Presentation

Engineering a pathway in E. Coli for turponoids, organic compound for making steroids,

by Brendan and Peter

  • 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.


2005 iGEM project summaries:

UCSF: Kara; genetic circuit of bacteria to respond to temperature gradient, analog vs. digital

Toronto: Angela; Cell See-Us Thermometer and Bacterial Etch-a-Sketch; used mRFP and GFP didn’t have a result

Berkeley: John; cell-cell communicator, send out genomes to other bacteria via a specific pore (channel) and the other bacteria would send something back when it received that message

Harvard: Peter; bio-sketch; use UV pen to write on bacteria, use GFP mutation as reporter; not so much a toggle switch as a one way switch; used heat to “erase”; didn’t work

Caltech: Annie; detect caffeine in solution; YFP and GFP high concentration of caffeine would repress GFP and YFP would glow; if decaf, YFP would be repressed and GFP would grow; if medium, then both would be present. <math>Insert formula here</math>

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
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