June

Notebook | June | July | August | School Year

	Week One- June 2-8 At the beginning of the first week, we gathered as a group to finalize our summer timeline. We had to give a presentation to faculty advisors on our summer readings. We created team nitroGENIUS, and prepared a timeline for the summer as well. Later, the team traveled to Monstanto, one of out major sponsors, Headquarters and gave a presentation to a panel of nitrogen fixation experts on our summer project, and got a tour of the facilities. Afterwards we started lab safety training and split into our respective labs for the summer. The Brauer team also started design of cloning for light regulation mechanism and ordered primers.
	Week Two- June 9-15 Continued from Week One, the team was trained to make LB media and completed all of the basic lab procedure training in their respective labs. During the second week, the team also completed the LB plate preparation. Rebstock Team members were trained for transformation of designed plasmid to JM109, BL21(DE3), Top10, and DH5Î± was also done. Started filling preliminary Safety forms. Continued work on creating negative and positive controls for light regulation, in addition to the light regulation plasmid and the necessary precursor plasmid. Website started work on web site layout design. At the end of the week we had our first meeting with Brandon and Rajib from Penn State to see how they can help our project from a computational perspective; they looked at possibly implementing a minimal nif cluster once we have the nitrogen fixation working.
	Week Three- June 16-22 Electroporation and transformation was done to all strainsâ€”plasmids are now in all selected strains. Rebstock Team started culturing experimental plates and tubes of JM109, BL21(DE3), Top10, and DH5Î± with plasmids. Positive and Negative control are designed. Team also initiated to contact Dennis Dean and two Chinese research groups about their plasmid that can be utilized as positive control for WashU iGEM team. Brauer group sent positive and negative controls for sequencing and learned how to colony PCR. Also redesigned plasmid and primers for light regulation. Website worked on team page, familiarize with table format of html, and start inserting pictures. We had another meeting with Brandon and Rajib; this time giving them an update on our wet lab work progress. Had our first Worldly Wednesday at the Taj Mahal.
	Week Four- June 23-29 As part of outreach program, Caroline started work on the scripts of video series introducing WashU iGEM project. Video filming is initiated and well in progress. Rebstock Team continued culturing the strains growing in plates in the hot room into new tubes as preparation for inoculation. Media used is minimal M9 media. Growth of the wild type strains is very limited and the engineered strains achieved low growth as well. Brauer group continued cloning for negative control and finished cloning of light regulation plasmid and sent in for sequence verification. Keep troubleshooting the chromophore plasmid. Website begin work on drop menu and messing around with CSS formatting. We had our second Worldly Wednesday at Queen of Sheba- Ethiopian food. Also watched a world cup match as a group. Brandon updated us on his progress of looking at protein domains in different nif clusters. Considered starting a model of our system. Our group explained to him our progress and sent him information on our protocols

Team:WashU StLouis/Notebook/June

From 2014.igem.org

June

Notebook | June | July | August | School Year

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