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(New page: 18 June 2008 My first wiki journal entry! As the SynBERC human practices member on the team, I have studied synthetic biology from a contextualizing and encompassing point of view fo...)
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My first wiki journal entry! As the SynBERC human practices member on the team, I have studied synthetic biology from a contextualizing and encompassing point of view for two semesters and am now trying the opposite way: from the ground up.
Today was my first day meeting with Chris, Terry, Kate, and the Wet Team--in other words, my first day in the lab. My role as the human practices member of the team (including the Wet Team and the Computational Team) has been molded to focus on the production of a blog maintained by UC Berkeley's College of Engineering (along with Mahdvi and Nade)-- In an attempt to find my feet in the lab (the rest of the team started in the lab two weeks ago), I have been going through the orientation materials they received. Not having touched math or science in three years, other than some orientation when first studying synthetic biology with Professor Rabinow in the fall of 2007, this has been quite an adventure.
During my first meeting with Chris, he focused on the importance of my producing a deliverable that was both relevant and educational, but which did not need to be completely coherent with the product of the rest of the group. My goal is to produce something that is relevant to the students themselves--even if what I am producing is in a different form than their product--and also to provide a convenient outlet for their own thoughts. Also, thankfully, I will be allowed the space to discuss both the work the iGemmers are doing and larger implications of synthetic biology as an emerging discipline.
After giving me a tour of Stanley Hall and the lab spaces, Terry gave a presentation on the math modeling project the team is required to design and produce for the competition. It is important that the team not only do extensive experimentation, but that they produce a coherent model of possibilities within certain parameters. The model is approaching the question of holin and anti-holin production (two parts to be spliced into the DNA of the E Coli, of possible additional parts) which will form pores on the membrane between the cytoplasm and the periplasm of the cell in a roughly measurable way--6 holin join together to form a hexagon with space in the middle which will allow for the passage of both enzymes and ions into the periplasm--enzymes which will lyse the cell and ions which will allow for a depolarization of the periplasm and the cytoplasm (the antiholin will not act like holin--and form pores--unless there is a depolarization). The students must form a model of how this process will unfold.
From Mahdvi and Terry, I understand that, as part of their project, the students must explain the applications of the technology they are engineering--cells that lyse in response to sound--and that the main objective is to gently distribute product (such as insulin) into the blood stream. Normally, cells are lysed from the outside and the process can destroy some of the product or the process cannot be mediated at all--allowing for too much product being produced among other possibilities. With the multiple changes of the system, it is hard to predict how they would interact. Two other applications involve the amelioration of current technology involved in the splicing of DNA.
In the orientating world, I am learning about the basics of the definition of synthetic biology, cloning, and the assembly of basic parts.
Second day of orientating. Spent the morning going over my notes from yesterday and continuing through the tutorials, and I went into the lab in the afternoon. Chris gave a presentation on Adobe Illustrator and its differences from Adobe Photoshop--it is very important that the team create innovative, attention-grabbing, and attractively created graphics for their presentation in November and their poster.
Susanna, the moderator and technical producer of the COE blog for the team, came to take a group picture of the team and to discuss with Nade, Mahdvi, and me the technicalities and utility of the blog. I expressed my desire that there be a large amount of videos of the students talking about what they are doing, as well as space for excerpts of lectures and the space for a portrayal of the dynamics of their day. I had a discussion about the blog and the culture of the College of Engineering with Susanna after the meeting. The other blog ideas the college had were to follow around a handful of engineers who are doing work abroad relating to installing cell phone networks in Uganda or installing water filtration systems to remove naturally occurring arsenic from water resources that are killing people.
Terry continued his tutorial on the math modeling, focusing on the computing of a "transfer function" of an experiment at steady state and the creation of a range of kinetics parameters.
A few of the students were quite happy with the video idea and proposed that we post videos of shenanigans. I must say I agree.
