Most of our members got together for the first time on February the 19th in 2013, and one week later, on the 26th, we held our first official meeting. Our group initially consisted of nine post- and undergraduate students, of which most were still uncertain whether to proceed with iGEM or not. In the following weeks, however, we all decided to dedicate ourselves to the project. We also gained three new members, resulting in a total of twelve members.
During the first few weeks of our project a considerable amount of time was spent on organisation and on multiple brainstorm sessions. With respect to the former, many issues had to be resolved, such as; the way communication within our group and with the supervisors would proceed, general division of tasks, facility reservations, ordering equipment, team member availability, and a number of minor iGEM obligations, such as registration and fees.
We began as soon as possible with the brainstorm sessions, from which many interesting (and perhaps slightly crazy and unfeasible) ideas originated. We brainstormed mostly in a group, but also on our own at home. Furthermore, we kept an online list of all the plausible concepts, which we eventually managed to narrow down to a list of eleven: (1) the production of silk, (2) measurement of nutrients in agriculture, (3) a blood sugar sensor, (4) transformation of radioactive waste into energy, (5) keratin decomposition, (6) transduction of sound, (7) anti-histamine contact lenses, (8) contact lens cleaners, (9) odor absorption and emittance, (10) prevention of rust, and (11) the removal of gum.
We then divided these ideas amongst us along with the tasks of identifying any potential complications (with respect to design, development and application), providing potential solutions to these complications, and conducting a short literature survey on the subject. Two weeks later the presentations were performed, which enabled us further narrow the list down to four concepts; (1) the removal of gum, (2) the production and secretion of silk, (3) odor absorption and emittance, and (4) transforming radioactive waste into energy.
And then before we knew it two months had passed and we were halfway through April! In April our progress seemed sluggish. We held presentations for the remaining four concepts, after which we chose the production and secretion of silk and the removal of gum to be our top two ideas. However, making a choice between these two remaining concepts proved to be no simple task. We held multiple presentations on the subjects, and it took time before a sufficiently detailed plan and description emerged.
The process dragged on through April and well into May where we finally chose the production and secretion of silk as our final project. Decisive factors in this decision were the properties of silk itself, and the wide range of applications that could suddenly be realized if secretion proved possible. When presented to the supervisors, however, it was not met with the enthusiasm we had hoped for.
The main criticisms were based on the fact that our plan of action was still lacking in detail, and that we did not have any concrete applications for our design. Our secondary goals, microfluidics and the secretion of coloured silk, also received a negative reception, and in the following weeks we began to reconsider our original idea. Eventually, some of our members came up with the idea to create a silk biofilm, after which they quickly managed to convince the rest of the team of its potential.
May was a fruitful month for outreach activities and sponsorships. In total we discovered five new possible outreach activities; the Talent career day, the 400 year RUG anniversary, the opening of the Open Public Lab Netherlands, Noorderzon, and the Night of Art and Science. The latter, the Night of Art and Science, is an event in Groningen where art and science is presented at various locations to the general public. It was held in the end of May, and with help from Science Linx we managed to attain a little stall with a poster from where we could educate curious bypassers on iGEM and synthetic biology.
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