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, germination, science, etc. We were very glad by having the science activity, of course we asked for having it. We were dressed as pirates in order to make funnier our scientific experiment.
Fistable, as kids were arriving to our fruit DNA extraction ship, in a nutshell we explained them, what a cell, a tissue, and an organism are. 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 living organisms share. When they obtained their precipitated DNA, the were asking lots of questions, such as if they could know their own DNA.
We did not forgot genetic engineering and synthetic biology, as they were able to watch with their own eyes DNA from fruits, we thaught them that DNA is like a big library, that contains too many books called genes, and that cells were able to study those books by reading them, so they could do what the have learned. We tell them that nowadays humans can erase the books content and change it for another. So if we decided to change the banana's book that teach its cells to be yellow and write that it would be not only blue, but also be producing a human molecule, the cells would learn it and apply it. We tell them that this was called synthetic biology with genetic engineering.

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Courses

Within the activites related to human practices, there are two intensive courses that we, in collaboration with iGEM team ollin synbio. The first of these courses covered the topics related to synthetic biology and was held at ITESM CEM. It consisted of 18 hours distributed in 3 different Saturdays (May 24th and 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 ranging from 4th to 8th semester of their undergraduate program. We can gladly say that this objective was met and that the participants acquired knowledge that will help them decide the path their scientific lives will take. 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 inscription of 750 mexican pesos, the money collected was divided between the two organizing teams, and it 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 5 Saturdays (June 21st and 28th and July 5th 12th and 26th) The 50 participants covered a fee of 900 pesos, this course was also held at ITESM CEM. In order to carry out the courses, team members contacted experts in each of the areas that we managed to cover. Being fortunate enough to have the participations 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, but also, really important topics such as biosafety and bioethics, given by Master in bioethics José Antonio Alonso Pavón, because it is of critical importance that the scientists that are being prepared today have the bioethics basis in order to carry out a carrier that is based on 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, probably, inspire them into creating their own team and participate in the years to come. With this in mind, we prepared a presentation for highschool students explaining our project and the possibility that they had of entering the contest in the highschool 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. We started talking about some basic concepts such as the definition of genetic engineering, synthetic biology, restriction enzymes, etc. 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 by saying that there is a highschool division in iGEM and that they could start their own team and participate next year in case they were interested. When we finished talking, there was a big silence, no one seemed to dare to make the first question, but once someone did, they kept coming and coming. They were very interested in the way we were developing our project, which is very understandable, since before that they , most of them hadn´t heard of terms like restriction enzyme, ligase, or even synthetic biology. 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, they started making questions about, what they had to do in order to participate in iGEM, this was of course very satisfying, since passing on the passion that we feel about our project and this contest, was our main goal. Some of the students were even willing to come to the lab and see us do the experiments and help if needed.

On Wednesday, 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 organised 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.

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New iGEM handbooks

Working with the handbooks became and inspiring piece of work. Because the work put into them was, primarily, in order to help and assess new teams and experienced ones as well. Several parts became involved in the creation of these materials, as the original holders of the idea, the ITESM campus CEM team knowing this would not be an easy walk, sought co-authorship. That’s when the Virtus Parva team decided to become involved and help each other out. There are three handbooks, each, with a specific area: the Good Laboratory Practice handbook, which helps on setting the standards of the work done in the laboratory; the iGEM Registry handbook, which is an easy to follow step guide for all those who venture into the iGEm parts domain, it covers from looking up a standard part into adding your own, going through the sending of a part for sequencing and the shipping process; and 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 to resolve, still, some teams may not find it insightful since there are many ways a team responds and stays motivated.

Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) embodies a set of principles that provides a framework within 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 assure regulatory authorities that the data submitted are 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 alike in the application of such standards, 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.

In the other hand, as it was mentioned previously, we have detected that Parts Registry web page could be a little bit hard to use for every new iGEMer or person in the whole world. The handbook named "Guideline Into iGEM’s Standardized Parts" would be able to help this people to use the Registry Web page as easy as possible.

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

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