Guelph/29 May 2008

Minutes for Thursday May 29th

Important Reminder
There is a meeting on Monday 12Noon at the Grad Lounge for all members. Please attend or leave notice to one of us that you cannot.

Chair Organism
Dave Johnston

Present Organisms
Mufaddal Girnary, Eddie Ma, Jen Vo, Tin Vo,

Organisms with Regrets
Brendan Hussey

--- iGem Wiki... --- We need to all register to make changes to this page. Because it is a wiki, everyone is entitled to learn about it and edit the team page. Please see "http://igem.org/Main_Page" for the main page which has buried within it some member registration form. Dave has been given the following registration code to supply to us.

"dea9ce"

This code is used so that we can identify ourselves as part of the same team.

Ed will read more about the wiki editing instructions and member registration instructions and will e-mail the important parts.

--- Lab scheduling. --- For those of you who weren't able to figure out what times during the week you're available, here's what the availability of some members looks like so far.

Mufaddal: - Tuesdays 8am to 1pm and 5:30pm to end of day. - Wednesday 8am to 1pm - OR one whole other day of the week

Jen: - Tuesdays 8am to 1pm and 5:30pm to end of day. - Wednesady 8am to 1pm and 5:30pm to end of day. - Thursday all day.

Ed: - Mondays 8am to 4pm except our noon meetings. - Thursdays 10am to 4pm. - Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday -- Possible 8am to 4pm (unsure). - Weekends -- Possible (unsure).

Tin (until the end of June -- is free more often in July): - Monday to Thurday 11:30am to 2pm - Tuesday after 5:30pm - Thursday after 4pm - Friday and Weekends anytime.

Dave: - All the time (lives in this building due to Thesis).

--- Subproject teams. --- Please let us know soon which of the three following subprojects you'd like to work on.

The teams are divided based on subproject.

As a reminder, the subprojects are: - "Vitamin A" pathway transfection (multiple methods, multiple species) - the "Multinutrient" pathway transfection - the "Plant Host" RNAi project.

- Jen and Mufaddal would like to work together on the "Plant Host" project. - Tin would like to work on the "Vitamin A" project. - Lisa has been assigned to the "Vitamin A" project. - Dave is the overlord and will work on all of the projects. - Brendan and Ed would like to work on the "Multinutrient" project. - Remaining members may choose whatever team they'd like, but please contact someone about that when you decide.

--- Science --- Please refer to last week's power point-- Clarification about some slides: - The target species are split into three categories: Probiotic, Fermentative and Corn Endophytes. - Probiotics are the bacteria found in intestines - Fermentative are bacteria found in yogourt - Corn endophytes are those bacteria found in corn

We're excited at the prospect of using Dr. Allen-Vercoe's intestine simulator for the probiotic class of cultures.

Each of the subprojects should touch a species in each class of the different categories-- ideally, every single species would be transformed at least once in each of the three projects. This works toward the objective of producing "genetic floppy disks" that can be run in many competent species of bacteria.

--- Fundraisers --- Because the ISA will not be in full swing, Moff Man (Mufaddal) proposes we sell somosas at the U.C. -- the ISA made $200 per fundraiser, three times each year.

--- Current Progress on Dave's Big Picture Timeline --- Step 3: "Bacterial strain selection, acquisition and electroporation / triparental mating protocol affirmation / development"

--- University of Guelph, Department of Business Development --- Sorry, Ed has not made ready a meeting with Dr. Steve De Brabandere about intellectual properties yet, but will slate it to occur mid-June.

--- Final Thought --- Dave wants to have user-driven kinds of training, meaning that training should be given to the team based on a need to learn techniques. Dave would like team mates to start communicating thematically and then to figure out what techniques would be needed in each subproject. In the big picture, Monday meetings would be a good time to discuss anomalies, new techniques and a time to book inter-sub-team visits to demonstrate new skills to one another.

(Meeting Adjourned)
Gopher McSecretary, Ed.