IGEM:MIT/2006/Introduction

This page contains links to introductory information for the MIT iGEM team.

Lab safety

All people working in a biological research lab must undergo safety training.

To complete your online safety training, visit the Endy lab safety training guide. (Even if you have worked in a lab before, you should visit this page and verify that your training is up to date.)

Heather will be giving the lab-specific training.

Wiki

How-to on wiki's

• Getting started --> Quick tutorial on using the OpenWetWare wiki
• Populate the official iGEM wiki

Abstraction hierarchy

• PoPS and composability

Registry

• Obtain accounts
• Making a part (both basic and subpart)
• BLAST
• Sequence alignments

BioBricks assembly

• BioBricks
• Standard assembly
• 3A assembly
• In frame assembly
• Direct synthesis

Part and device characterization

• Plate reader characterization (i.e. Receiver)
• Flow cytometry (i.e. Screening plasmid)
• Microscopy
• RT-PCR and Westerns

Searching and reading the literature

• Searching the literature

Links

General introduction to ideas in Synthetic Biology

1. Adventures in synthetic biology comic --> Learn about PoPS
2. Foundations for engineering biology --> rant by Drew Endy
3. MIT iGEM 2004 presentation (.ppt,pdf)
4. UT Austin and UCSF 2004 project (coliroids)
5. Find descriptions of 2005 projects

Week 1

Goals -

• Do one assembly stage
• Make a biobrick
• Necessary software - VectorNTI, Registry, Wiki
• Literature searching

Day 1

Dry Lab

• Safety training
• Lab tour
• Registry accounts

Wet Lab

• Pick a gene and design primers
  • Introduces parts
• Start overnights
  • Introduces sterile technique, culturing,

Day 2

Dry Lab

• BioBricks Construction

Wet Lab

• Prep & Digest