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.

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