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Team:KULeuven/Evaluation
From 2008.igem.org
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Contents |
Our road towards the golden dream ...
At the end of a project people often tend to look only at the results. But the road towards these results is as important, especially if other students will discover the same path next year. Therefore we want to reflect on our obtained results and the path towards them.
During the summer period we divided our team into two major parts: a lab team and a modelling team. The work in the dry lab resulted in an extensive model of our full system. Building the main model was finished during the first six - seven weeks. During these weeks the model was gradually built and updated several times. A big part of that period was spent on searching literature and internet for right values of all parameters. There were some parameters where we couldn't find any values, in those cases we made some "guesses". We made sure that in those cases there are references to some papers and sources that gave us an estimate of those parameters Every subsystem was extensively tested and simulated before we've connected them to each other. Hereafter we've further investigated the diffusion of HSL to the medium and the effect of multiple cells on the behaviour of one single cell. This resulted in one of our own written software tools: a multi-cell toolbox. During the entire summer, our modelling team have made a beautiful wiki on which our progress and results could be consulted at any time: we've been working as "open source" as possible.
While the modelling team was busy with building and simulating our Dr. Coli, the lab team was busy with connecting the different DNA sequences. Unfortunately, our lab team was very often withheld from a fast progress:
- punching the DNA: ...
- adjustments by the modelling team to the DNA sequence of different subsystems: While the modelling team was building the model, they often saw by simulations a malfunctional subsystem. This resulted in many changes of the DNA sequences of the different subsystems. A good example is the memory. Our first memory would have automatically switched from state zero to state one, which basically makes it completely useless. This resulted in a totaly new memory system.
Many ribosome binding sites were upregulated or downregulated. All these changes made many ligations useless and a lot of work had to be redone. This was the main reason the lab team couldn't keep up with the modelling team. But we did not have many other choices, but to carry on with the work, because we had a very ambitious project and only 3 months time... As an advice for the team of next year, we recommend to start modelling as soon as possible so that changes to the system don't lead to too much useless work.
- ...
Despite these obstacles, the lab team could finish different parts which resulted in some biobricks/ one biobrick (?).
TODO: hier nog iets zeggen over de behaalde resultaten in het labo
When it comes to the iGEM judging criteria, we believe we have fulfilled many different requirements like submitting the DNA sequence of a new biobrick: GFP with a LVA-tag. Furthermore this biobrick works fine and has as experiments shown a faster degradation rate than GFP without the LVA-tag. Based on these experiments we could even characterize the biobrick by determing its degradation constant. Besides these lab criteria we also made an effort to make a contribution to the world on Ethics and Human Practices in synthetic biology by outlining and detailling an issue about these two subjects related to our project. Our approach is based on the Three Laws of Robotics formulated by Isaac Asimov halfway the twenthieth century. We were also proud to see some wiki-tools show up on other team's wikis. Based on all these facts, we started dreaming of a golden medal...
TODO: nog iets over grand prizes?
Personal Evaluation
Students
Maarten
A once in a life time opportunity broadening my view in different aspects
As a civil engineer, I started this project without a precise view on the work I was expected to do. It was a step in the dark. At the end, I can say that this once in a life time oppurtinity, has broadened my view in many aspects:
- Till now I've only modelled based on the "black box system"-principle. This was the first time in my student carreer that I helped building a white box model based on biological laws.
- This project was a nice introduction into the world of synthetic biology which was unknown to me.
- Working in a team with people form very different backgrounds is very representative to the real world. This experience will certaintly help me in my future working career.
As you can see, I'm glad I joined the project.
