Team:UESTC-China/yanTeam

Feb 14
iGEM 2014 registration opens.
Feb 20
Site: West 304 of main building in UESTC
Team of iGEM 2014 in UESTC is founded.
Feb 21
Site: West 304 of main building in UESTC
We name our team Green Life;
Discuss the direction we will focus on for the iGEM 2014.
Feb 24
Site: West 304 of main building in UESTC
We meet the supervisors Yong Zhang, Xuelian Zheng, Lixia Tang, discussing the direction and acquiring their opinions of our project.

A lecture to the seventh middle school

In order to disseminate the iGEM competition, we introduce the concept and racing type of iGEM to the students in the seventh middle school who were the best students in Sichuan province. During this lecture, we see the interests showed by the middle school students toward iGEM. And they also revealed that, it would be a luck to attend this international competition.

Knowledge quiz

In order to popular iGEM in our country, we made a knowledge quiz to expand people's horizon. The knowledge quiz is just a few questions which made to barricade peoplewho want to win the delicate presents we offered. However, the questions are not that difficult, so people all have the chance to get the gifts. Also, they can surf the internet for the right answer. All we do, is to make iGEM and our project more popular.

Communicate with SCU

During the summer vacation, we communicated with the students from SCU. We exchanged our project to each other and made a long talk about what we had done during the last month. What’s more, we let them visit our laboratory where we did our project. At the end of the communication, we gathered to have a lunch, which made us more harmonious.

Transformation

From July 25th,we start to do the transformation part. That really requires large volume of work. Four members of our team do the most of the work,and other members also help a lot. The genes are transformed into tobacco via Agrobacterium-mediated leaf disk transformation method,which means we begin with leafs and end with small plants.We do three-time repeated transformation to assure every vector can get enough positive plants. Obviously, DNA detection and RT-PCR method are used to prove the plants have already get the gene or genes.

Vector construction

On August 6th, after about three months' hard work,we finish the section of vector construction. According to the plan,we are going to construct 11 gene expression vectors,including 2 backbone vectors, 6 single gene expression vectors and 3 multi-gene expression vectors. The main reason why it takes so long is that the gene AHA2 we synthetize from the company can't stay stable in our competent cell. Several methods are tried, but they don' work. So we have to give the gene up.

Visited by the schoolmaster

During the summer vacation, besides communicating with the students in SCU, there is another activity which worth a notice, our principal came to our laboratory and gave us a speech, which totally stimulated us to work harder and excited. The principal told us do not be scared to have the new idea, ‘cause the study we received today is to make us to speak out a new idea no matter it is wizard or not.

Questionaire

In order to popular iGEM in our country and do some research about our project, we made a questionnaire. We disseminated the questionnaire in many different places to make different range of people to participate this research, however, the students is still the most part of the engaged people.
In the questionnaire, we got three part needing people to sign in. through these three parts’ questions, we can find the viewpoints people showed to iGEM and our project.

Formaldehyde detection

On September 1st, when the eighth leaves of the first batch of tobacco seedings appear,we start the formal experiments of formaldehyde detection. Before that,some pre-tests are made based on some corresponding references. Finding the right amount of formaldehyde is the hardest part. By means of a series of experiments,we determine the final protocol which includes the qualitative detection and quantitative detection. From the experimental results,we can draw the conclusion that our super plants have remarkable formaldehyde tolerance and can dramatically reduce the concentration of formaldehyde in the air.

Products display

In the beginning of this new semester, our school held a science and culture activity. We caught this opportunity to advertise iGEM and our ultimate products, the plants which can absorb formaldehyde. The leaders and many teachers in our school also participated this activity. We displayed the plants which already owned the several genes which worked in the absorption of formaldehyde, to the people who visited our project. And the people visited our plant all said they want to owe one if there is already market available.