Team:SDU-Denmark/Tour40

The Process

From thought to rubber

The overall process the team went through

The first part of our team was assembled on the 28th of February 2013, and three newcomers joined the team afterwards. The following months were used to get to know each other, compare expectations, learn how to work together as a team, and how to organize a project.

On the 8th of May our team agreed on a project; the rubber project. Research into how we could build a biological system that might enable a bacteria to produce rubber was commenced. A basic idea of how we would accomplish our goal was hereafter put together.

From the basic idea, we designed a model of the system, including a design of the biological production system, and the laboratory work could begin. We started building the BioBricks, BioBricks are DNA pieces that are comparable to Lego bricks. BioBricks have standards, just like Lego bricks, and because of the standards a BioBrick can easily be combined with another BioBrick. These BioBricks are handy when building new biological system, as complex biological circuits can be composed from simple BioBricks. including basic parts, A basic part is a BioBrick with functional DNA that cannot be divided into smaller parts without losing its functionality. composite partsA composite part is a BioBrick composed of two or more basic parts without a human defined function. This means that a composite part does not conduct an operation within the biological system. and devices, A device is a BioBrick composed of two or more basic parts with a human-defined function. This means that a device conducts an operation within the biological system, e.g. the DNA being expressed into a protein or enzyme, which converts one molecule into another. that we needed to characterize our system. Then we tried to prove whether or not the designed system in fact could produce rubber.

iGEM Human Outreach
A part of the iGEM competion is the mediation of knowledge. Besides the outreach done by sharing our wiki, we were contacted by a couple of newspapers that wanted to share our story. Moreover, we visited several schools and taught kids and youngsters about iGEM, the ideas of synthetic biology, and our project. See pictures and feedback, dig deeper under ‘Human Practices’.

iGEM co-operation
When participating in this competition, each team is encouraged to cooperate with each other. We worked together with the iGEM team of Edinburgh on de-stiffening their model, a model which is beneficial for both teams. Furthermore, we made a short video to help the University of Copenhagen team in starting a new iGEM educational system. Last, but not least, we hosted a Jamboree preparing meetup for the danish iGEM teams. A further description can be found if you dig deeper under ‘Helping others’.

Dig deeper to see a specific timeline, our protocols and standard operating procedures.

Fast forward to see our results and accomplishments.

Pictures from teambuilding lesson and meeting with the old iGEM teams of SDU