WELCOME TO PENN STATE iGEM 2014!

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General Support

Dr. Howard Salis and Dr. Tom Richard were our iGEM coordinators and were instrumental in development of the big ideas for our projects as well as with troubleshooting specific experiments.

Project Support and Advice

Chiam Yu Ng (graduate student) was an outstanding mentor, helping us to learn design strategies and develop a cloning plan to set our project into motion. When we ran into problems with cloning, Chiam Yu was very patient and helped us to optimize our experimental processes.

Another great asset to our project was Tian Tian (graduate student). Because of her desk’s proximity to Clay’s, she skillfully answered an almost constant stream of questions - on everything from optimizing PCR protocols to tips for plasmid prep.

Manish Kushwaha (post-doc), Iman Farasat (graduate student), Long Chen (graduate student) and Amin Espah Borujeni (graduate student) all provided critical tips for improving our cloning strategy, as well as assistance developing our programs to optimize the GFPs.

Iman Farasat and Dr. Salis were a big help to the Biodetoxification project. Iman assisted us with forming an experimental plan and ordering primers for Gibson Chew-Back Annealing Assembly. They both taught us how to perform a CBA and homologous recombination and offered advice during our project troubleshooting. Tian Tian, Chiam Yu Ng, Long Chen, Manish Kushwaha and Amin Espah Borujeni answered our random questions.

Fundraising Help and Advice

Dr. Tom Richard and Dr. Howard Salis took on the burden of finding funding for the undergrads, and we are sincerely thankful for their work.

Lab Support

We are very appreciative of being able to use Dr. Salis’s Lab space and materials. Iman and Chiam Yu were crucial in the wet-lab success of both projects.

Difficult Technique Support

When we experienced problems with a tricky inverse PCR, Chiam Yu helped us to uncover a critical error in one of our primers. Designing an RBS library with the constraints that were present in our constructs was very difficult and Iman helped us to understand and solve this problem. Iman taught the Biodetoxification group the protocol for Gibson CBA and homologous recombination. Dr. Salis provided modifications to the protocol using the Lambda Red Recombinase plasmid.

Wiki Support

Chiam Yu was helpful with advice. Ashlee spent a lot of time surfing the internet and found tutorials and resources for html and CSS. None of us have experience with creating a website prior to iGEM so it was quite a daunting task.

Presentation Coaching

Dr. Howard Salis and Dr. Tom Richard both improved our presentation skills.

Kay Dimarco (staff) helped us to find activity kits from the previous iGEM team, which we ended up reinventing but were a source of inspiration for our presentation to the science teachers and the ScienceU students. Matt Johnson (staff) and Leah Bug (staff) gave us advice on our NewBio Teachers presentation for the Center for Science and the Schools.

Policy and Practices Support

Dr. Tom Richard helped us to refine and implement our ideas for human practices topics.

Thanks and Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone in the Salis lab, Dr. Salis, and Dr. Richard for supporting us along the way.