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Teachtheteachers
From 2008.igem.org
Teach the Teachers 2008
Stata Center, MIT, May 3, 2008
9:00 am -- Welcome and Introduction by Randy Rettberg
Brief discussion about the philosophy of iGEM - building an engineering discipline around standardized parts.
Sponsors
[http://www.mathworks.com The MathWorks] is providing free software to iGEM teams.
[http://www.geneart.com GeneArt] is provinding low-cost DNA synthesis to iGEM teams.
Movies
iGEM Cartoon Movie
Movie about the 2006 iGEM Slovenian team (where can this be found?)
[http://blip.tv/file/472883 The iGEM 2007 Dance movie]
iGEM Websites
Main iGEM website
[http://partsregistry.org New Parts Registry site] -- active in about 1 week
Overview of the schedule for the day
9:30 am Synthetic Biology based on Parts -- Tom Knight
Abstraction and Design of Simple Biological Systems
This is very similar to his talk presented at SB3.0 in Zurich, available [http://www.syntheticbiology3.ethz.ch/tuesday.htm here] at the bottom of the page.
Some of the basic concepts discussed here are abstraction, modularity, standardization, isolation (separation of concerns), and flexibility. More information about the standardization of parts (and some legal issues around this) is available at [http://www.biobricks.org www. biobricks.org]. Dr. Knight stressed the importance of iGEM teams using the existing parts, using the standardized assembly techniques, and becoming contributors to the parts registry. This year's distribution contains more than 2000 parts, compared to 5 in 2001. For this growth to continue, teams must continue to contribute their new parts to the registry.
10:00 am -- Jason Kelly -- Standard Measurement Kit for BioBrick Promoters (PoPS-out devices)
(The slides will be at http://partsregistry/measurement when the site is live)
Jason explains how to measure the PoPs of promoters and compare it to a reference standard.
More information at [http://openwetware.org/wiki/Jason_Kelly this site]
10:30 am -- Reshma Shetty Building BioBrick vectors from BioBrick parts
Everything you need to know can be found in their Journal of Biological Engineering article, found [http://www.jbioleng.org/content/2/1/5 here]. (doi:10.1186/1754-1611-2-5).
Also slides from the talk are available (pdf download).
10:45 am -- Randy Rettberg -- Overview of the iGEM 2008 Wiki
Note that a team page on the official iGEM wiki is required for each team. This is the information that will be used by the judges. Teams are welcome to maintain their own wikis, but the project information must be uploaded to the official iGEM wiki before judging starts. This ensures that judges have access to the material and also that information will be preserved for the benefit of teams in future competitions.
12:00 noon -- Lunch and team introductions
The list of registered teams can be found here.
1:15 pm -- Mathworks Introduction
MathWorks is again a sponsor of iGEM.
[http://www.mathworks.com/programs/igem Click here] for software and training!
Contact is Kristen Zannella for information or feedback kzannella(at)mathworks(period)com
1:30 pm -- Meagan Lizarazo, Overview of Registry tools, BioBrick formats
See [http://openwetware.org/wiki/The_BioBricks_Foundation:Standards/Technical/Formats technical formats] for overview of the various standards.
See [http://partsregistry.org/Help:Contents this page] for a set of tutorials and other info to help you use the registry tools effectively. The tutorial during the workshop largely followed the "Team Experience Tutorial".
2:45 pm -- Meagan Lizarazo, Overview of 2008 DNA distribution
This year the DNA has been fully QC'd and is spotted onto filter sheets that will be sent out in a binder.
Information about the 2008 DNA can be found [http://partsregistry.org/Help:IGEM_08_DNA_distribution here].
All the information about each part on each "plate" can be found [http://partsregistry.org/assembly/libraries.cgi?id=15 here].
3:30 pm -- Randy Rettberg, Overview of Team Requirements and how iGEM will operate
4:00 pm -- Drew Endy -- Judging, Awards, and Biosafety
See here for draft information on awards and here for information on how iGEM will be judged. NOTE: This is all draft and open for discussion! Email Drew!
There is also a biosafety requirement as part of the iGEM team presentations now -- part of bridging the generational gap between younger and older scientists, raising awareness, and sharing best practices.
