Team:Technion-Israel/HP

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Safie by Technion-Israel

SynBio in 3 langueges


Coming soon

iGEM high-schools

The story of how we founded the first Israeli iGEM HS team


The iGEM idea is pretty new in Israel: the first Israeli team to compete in iGEM was the Technion team from 2012.
We are the second team from the Technion, and among our mentors are former Technion 2012 iGEM team members.
To make sure the iGEM continuity will last, passing the torch was one of the most important aspects for us this year.

So, in the spirit of iGEM continuity, we have taken upon ourselves to establish the first Israeli iGEM high school team!

In 2014, 54 high school teams were registered for the competition, but none of them were from Israel.
Not long after we started this amazing journey called iGEM, we started to wonder why the Israeli students aren't taking a part of this experience. We believe that the competition has so much to give for talented curious youth:

Synthetic biology knowledge
Advance research tools
Improvement of team work skills
New areas of interest
A rare opportunity to develop a scientific idea

And that's just a partial list.

Building the HS team wasn't an easy process. We knew that in order to organize the young team we have to find an educational partner that has the facilities and funding to help us to implement our vision.
It took us a few months to understand what we need exactly in order to set a group of motivated young students, a research lab and all the necessary equipment to start a synthetic biology project.
During those months we met with people with educationional backround and even with representatives from the Israeli ministry of education to start the whole process. All of the people whom we met with were extremely excited about the iGEM concept and wanted to help in any way possible.

After a long search we found our partner-The Unit for Science Oriented Youth in the Technion.

The unit has equipped labs suitable for research work. Furthermore, the unit has an excellency program which includes students from all over the country.
The next step was to plan synthetic biology training for the young students. In order to start a SynBio project they would have to learn the biology basics, synthetic biology principles, modelling, lab techniques etc.
We have built a full training program for the HS team, including lectures and lab work. The program is as follows:

Week 1

Introduction to the iGEM HS competition

The group would get a full explanation about the process they will go through in iGEM and would learn about the transition from classic molecular biology to synthetic biology.

Week 2

Introduction to genetic engineering

The meeting will include a lecture about DNA and the genetic code and a second lecture about genetic engineering. In order to illustrate the theoretical subjects of the meeting, the group will produce DNA from an onion as the first lab activity.

Week 3

The principals of transformation

Except from learning theoretically about competent cell, seeding techniques and heat shock, the students will practice doing a transformation at the lab.

Week 4

Bacterial growth and DNA purification

The group would learn about the different stages of bacterial growth. In addition they will practice DNA purification using a mini prep kit.

Week 5

Restriction enzymes and gel electrophoresis

The team will first learn about the use of restriction enzymes in molecular biology and then implement the technique in the lab. The restriction reaction will be followed by running the products in agarose gel.

Week 6

PCR reactions and primers design

The meeting will include a lecture about the PCR method followed by doing an actual PCR reaction in the lab. The week after the students will clean their PCR products.

Week 7

Synthetic biology

Now that the team has learned about molecular biology techniques we can start focus on synthetic biology. The students will hear about logic gates, modeling of a biological system and kinetics to get a real sense of synthetic biology.

Week 8 & 9

iGEM competition and past projects

. What are the requirements of the competition? How to find parts in the iGEM registry? The team will get all the answers regarding the competition. In the second part of the meeting the students will divide to groups, and each group will need to analyze past iGEM HS project and make a review presentation about that project.

Week 10 onwards

Starting the iGEM project

From week 10 the team will have enough basic tools and synthetic biology knowledge to start working on their own project, with the help of the mentors.



The meetings of the group are planned to be once a week since the end of October 2014 and until the 2015 iGEM HS competition.
Since we are nearly at the end of our project and in the spirit of passing the torch, the Technion 2015 iGEM team will continue to mentor the young HS team by the plan we have built.

Good luck to the first Israeli iGEM HS team! We hope that our vision will pave the way to many more Israeli HS teams.

Collaborations

Coming soon

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