Guelph/1 June 2008

Dear iGEM Team:

In case you haven't met me, I'm Eddie.

Dave and I have started dialogues with the department chairs of Microbiology and Genetics (Dr. C Whitfield), Ontario Veterinary College (Dr. N MacLusky) and Computer and Information Sciences (Dr. DA Stacey).

We have good news to report in that all of the above have expressed good interest in our project; two have promised funding as soon as they know more about us and two have already started polling their faculty about garnering laboratory equipment and time.

We wish to have a meeting with the entire team, details follow:

Monday April 21.

Time undecided.

Grad Lounge.

This is the Monday after the exams. This leaves each of us a weekend between the end of exams and this meeting.

We wish that anyone who had previously proposed a project do the background readings for their topic. It is at this meeting that we will discuss the feasibility of each proposed project and select the three most feasible.

Background readings constitute a literature search for relevant articles or reviews-- do not write a review of your own. Instead, please become familiar with the methods, science and important names associated of your proposed topic.

When we have selected the top three proposed topics, they will be composed into brief proposals to be presented to the chairs of each department interested.

We will then hold a grand presentation to express our top three project proposals to the faculty of all departments interested, and hand out contact information so that they can contact us one-on-one.

We will keep this grand presentation about science, and not discuss logistics aside from time lines. Support is something that we will gather after the presentation in a one-on-one setting.

So, in summary, this is what we are doing and this is what we'll need.

Synopsis:

1. Please indicate what time of the day on Monday April 21st is a good time for you to meet us at the Grad Lounge; if you cannot attend, please read on.

2. Please complete background readings to the extent that you can describe a few relevant experiments, the general science and know a few names connected to the project you have previously proposed to the group for the meeting on Monday April 21st.

3. If you are unable to attend the meeting on Monday April 21st, please e-mail a brief summary to the team to review at the time of the meeting, so that your proposed project is not lost. All science is valuable to us.

4. Finally, if you no longer wish to be a part of the iGem Guelph team and its project, let us know as soon as you have decided.

We (Dave and I) will await your responses.

Thank you; and good luck with your exams and the closing projects of this semester,

Eddie