Team:Utah State/Outreach/BioEngineering

Discover Biological Engineering

Members of the team also received the opportunity to further educate high school students about the possibilities of synthetic biology as well as the purpose of iGEM during a Utah State Biological Engineering sponsored seminar series called Discover Biological Engineering. Students were introduced to the basics of synthetic biology through lecture and a small lab activity. Members of the team took the students through the whole cloning process, explaining digestion with restriction enzymes and ligation to streaking plates and picking colonies. Students had the opportunity to perform their own transformations using DNA and competent E. coli cells. The students also learned the proper way to streak a plate and to pick colonies for cultures. Pictures of the students’ plates were taken and were emailed to the students so they could witness the growth on their plates.