DNA extraction

This was our first activity as new iGEMers, our university decided to organize a multidisciplinary event for children between 4 and 12 years old. This event had many activities, such as painting, cooking workshops, plant culture, science, etc. We were very glad to be in charge of a science activity, of course we asked for it. We dressed as pirates in order to make the experiment more fun for the children.
At the beginning, as kids were arriving to our fruit DNA extraction ship, we gave them a basic explanation of simple things like: what are cells, tissues and organisms? How humans are different thanks for the long long long molecule inside our cells, DNA. They were told that they would know how DNA seems.
After this brief explanation we proceeded to obtain DNA from bananas and strawberries. Kids were really excited to meet the molecule that all living organisms share. When they were able to see the precipitated fruit DNA, they were asking lots of questions, such as: Can we see our own DNA?
Of course, we did not forget genetic engineering and synthetic biology, as they were able to watch with their own eyes DNA from fruits, we taught them that DNA is like a big library, which contains too many books called genes, and that cells were able to learn from those books by reading them, so they could do what all these interesting pages said in the nucleotide language. We told them, that nowadays humans can erase the book's content and change it for another, to write new words, type in new letters. So, if we decided to change the banana's book that teaches its cells how to be yellow (and yummy!), we could insert new words to tell the banana cells how to be blue or pink, or even taste like strawberry! We told them that this was called synthetic biology with genetic engineering.

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Courses

Within the activities related to human practices, there were two intensive courses given by iGEM Team ITESM CEM, in collaboration with iGEM Team Ollin Synbio. The first one covered the topics related to Synthetic Biology and its applications and was held at our Institution. It consisted of 18 hours distributed in three different Saturdays (May 24th, May 31st and June 7th). The goal of this course was to cover the following topics:

• Fundamentals of molecular biology and genetics
• Genetic Engineering
• Fundamentals of Synthetic Biology
• Biobricks
• Biological machines
• Synthetic biology and its applications
• Intellectual property
• Biosafety and bioethics

In order to broaden the perspective of the participants, who mostly consisted of Biotechnology Engineering students from 2nd to 4th year of their undergraduate program, we can gladly say that our goal was met and that the participants acquired knowledge, which will be useful to decide how close they want to stay from science. It was a great opportunity to introduce young people to the world of synthetic biology, biobricks, biological machines, biosafety and bioethics.
The 50 subscribed participants covered a fee of 750 MXN, the money collected was divided between the two organizing teams and was used to develop their projects.

The second course that we organized covered the topics related to Medical Biotechnology, these topics are the following:

• Cell biology and genetics
• Genomics
• Transcriptomics
• Proteomics
• Pathogen identification using molecular diagnosis
• Molecular diagnosis of heritable diseases
• Pharmacogenetics
• Pharmacogenomics
• Cell therapy using stem cells
• Tissue engineering
• Gene therapy
• Fundamentals of Immunology
• Recombinant vaccines
• Transfer factor
• Fabotherapy
• Bioethics

This course consisted of 32 effective hours, distributed in five Saturdays (June 21st, June 28th, July 5th, 12th and 26th) The 50 participants covered a fee of 900 MXN, this course was also held at ITESM CEM. In order to carry out the courses, team members contacted experts in each of the areas covered. We were honored to have the participation of recognized researchers such as Ph.D Atlántida Raya Rivera; Ph.D Vianney Ortíz Navarrete; Master José Antonio Alonso Pavón; Ph.D Juan José Plata, among others. Many of them work at CINVESTAV, UNAM, ITESM, etc. The collaboration of these experts helped participants acquire knowledge regarding not only synthetic biology and medicine. Nevertheless, other important topics such as biosafety and bioethics were exposed by Master in Bioethics José Antonio Alonso Pavón, because of its relevance in science - scientists have to be prepared today and have a bioethic basis in order to carry out the improvement and benefit of the human race.

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Talks

Being part of an iGEM team includes inviting other people to get involved in the work that the team members have been developing. This could inspire them into creating their own team and participate in the years to come. With this in mind, we prepared a presentation for high school students explaining our project and the possibility that they had of entering the contest in the High School Division. We honestly had no idea what to expect from this students, fortunately they were all part of the course “Biochemistry and Cell Physiology” which meant they had a big interest in science. The talk started with some basic concepts such as the definition of genetic engineering, synthetic biology, restriction enzymes, to which they all seemed very interested in. We later discussed the fundaments of our project and how much we've accomplished so far. We finished saying that there is a High School division in iGEM and that they could start their own team and participate next year in case they were interested. As soon as we finished talking, there was total silence, no one seemed to dare to make the first question, but once someone did, they kept asking and asking. They were very interested in the way we were developing our project, which is very understandable, since they weren't familiar with many concepts we mentioned. Nevertheless, they were all fascinated with the details of our experiments and with the fact that, providing a solution to a big problem using synthetic biology, was a reality. Once their curiosity of the details of how synthetic biology works faded, they started making more questions about what they had to do in order to participate in iGEM. This was of course very satisfying, since our main goal was to pass on the passion that we have towards our project and this contest. Some of the students were even willing to come to the lab and see us do the experiments... they even started helping us.

In September 17th, iGEM ITESM CEM Team was invited to speak at a Forum that took place at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Mexico City. The event "4th Forum on Biotechnology", was organized by members of IPN's biotechnology students, as well as academic employees, in order to foster science and research among students of the Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology and Biology.
Team members Carlos Meza and Eddie Cano prepared a short talk explaining both the scope of ITESM CEM’s project, and the structure and importance of iGEM as a competition. At noon, it was all prepared, the seats were all taken, and ITESM CEM’s team was standing at the oval auditorium, at IPN’s Polytechnic Unit for Enterprises Development (UPCDE). The talk went on for an hour, and questions were also addressed to the audience, so that students and young scientists could share ideas on synthetic biology topics.
The talk was also an opportunity for the National Synthetic Biology Web to share their objectives and expand their project. A lot of interest was generated in the audience, which was probably formed by many future iGEMers, and researchers.

In October 16th, iGEM ITESM CEM had a brief participation in ConCiencia TEC, and event organized to expose about different areas of expertise involving scientific talks. The assistance consisted of mainly students from Elementary school, Junior High school, High school and Undergraduate students. As a tea, we gave the conference "Synthetic Biology" in which we talked about atherosclerosis and its implications in mexican health.

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New iGEM handbooks

Working with the handbooks became an inspiring piece of work. Because they were made in order to help and assess new teams and experienced ones as well. Several institutions became involved in the creation of these materials. As original holders of the idea, our team knew this would not be an easy work and we looked for co-authorship. That’s when the Virtus Parva team decided to become involved and help us out. There are three handbooks, each one covers a specific area: the Good Laboratory Practice handbook, helps on setting the standards of the work done in the laboratory; the iGEM Registry handbook, is a step-by-step guide for all those who venture into the iGEM Parts Registry domain, it helps the team look up a standard part and even teaches you how to add your own.
Last but not least, the iGEM team handbook, this one hopes to cover most of the team formation process, as well to be a guideline for teams to follow along the process until the Jamboree is concluded. This work was the most complex one, still some teams may not find it insightful since there are many ways in which teams stay motivated.

Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) embodies a set of principles that provide a framework in which laboratory studies are planned, performed, monitored, recorded, reported and archived. These studies are undertaken to generate data by which the hazards and risks to users, consumers and third parties, including the environment, can be assessed for pharmaceuticals (only preclinical studies), agrochemicals, cosmetics, food additives, feed additives and contaminants, novel foods, biocides, detergents, etc.

GLP helps to assure regulatory authorities that the data submitted is a true reflection of the results obtained during the study and can therefore be relied upon when making risk/safety assessments.

As set by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulations Agency (MHRA), that is the actual definition of GLP. This handbook will aid students and instructors in the application of such standards. Even though it is not as thorough as the WHO GLP Handbook, it is a neat approach into the environment and work policies that must be followed in order to assure a quality procedure.

We have detected that Parts Registry's web page could be hard to use for every new iGEMer or person in the whole world, the handbook named "Guideline Into iGEM’s Standardized Parts" was written to help these people to use the Registry Web page as easy as possible.

Among this section, we have talked about manuals regarding GLP and parts registry. Nonetheless, we decided to also elaborate a handbook that includes all points regarding the creation of an iGEM team so as future teams have the necessary tools to work efficiently: The iGEM Team Handbook When it comes to the integration of an iGEM team, there are many factors that should be taken into consideration, in order to make the experience as rich as possible. It is the purpose of this handbook to give future iGEM teams the necessary advices. First of all, it is of critical importance that the team members have the will of entering the contest, since it is will power that will lead to successful results and a life changing experience.
Through this handbook, users will be able to discover and unravel several tips and advices worth following, since it has been done through the experience of two different teams, who have undergone several obstacles, but who have, at the same time overcome them. Along this past year, these teams have taken several measures to create a better work environment and to obtain better and more efficient results. However, by reading this handbook, future teams will not have to take this measures when things are not going that well, on the contrary, they will be able to apply them before it all starts, this way they will save a lot of time and obtain the best possible results.

Click on the images on the right side to download and enjoy our Handbooks.

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