Team:DTU-Denmark/Achievements/BioBrick Workshop

From 2014.igem.org

Revision as of 09:18, 17 October 2014 by AnneSofie (Talk | contribs)

(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

BioBrick Workshop 2014

iGEM is not only about developing fascinating solutions to global or everyday problems using synthetic biology. It is about sharing knowledge and experience with your fellows. It is about achieving great results together with like-minded people as well as sharing your achievements with other to help them achieve even greater results.

Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is our experience at the 2014 DTU iGEM team that a good start is essential for every research project. Since our team consists of several trained wetlab biotech students we chose to take advantage of our experience and arrange and carry our a workshop for all other Danish iGEM teams to help them get their iGEM projects started.

Thus, we decided to repeat the success of the BioBrick Workshop 2013 hosted by the previous year's DTU iGEM team. The BioBrick Workshop concept is to gather the iGEM teams of Denmark (UCPH, SDU and DTU) for a social learning experience about the core of iGEM, genetical engineering and safety.

The BioBrick Workshop 2014 was hosted from Friday early afternoon until Sunday afternoon at DTU where the Danish iGEM teams received lectures about: Primer design for USER-cloning, the online tool PHUSER that can be used for designing primers, the core of iGEM, how to receive medals and Wiki design and editing in iGEM. The teams were also introduced to several need-to-know laboratory procedures; PCR, gel electrophoresis, purification of DNA from agarose gels and USER-cloning.

Our overall intention was to provide the other teams with a solid introduction to the iGEM competition, how to create a great wiki-website and a basic hands-on experience with essential laboratory techniques to enable their work with engineering of biological systems.

Another important purpose of the weekend was to generate team feeling within the different teams. This was achieved by social dinners every evening after a day packed with lectures and exercises in the laboratory.