IGEM:MIT/2008: Difference between revisions
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* M. G. Taylor, "Reliable information storage in memories designed from unreliable components," <i>Bell Syst. Tech. J.</i>, vol. 47, no. 10, pp. 2299–2337, Dec. 1968. | * M. G. Taylor, "Reliable information storage in memories designed from unreliable components," <i>Bell Syst. Tech. J.</i>, vol. 47, no. 10, pp. 2299–2337, Dec. 1968. | ||
There are probably more easily editable means of biological information storage that are more worthy of exploration. | |||
*'''cookb''': Hmm, that's an interesting idea and quote original for iGEM. I'm getting an image of some sort of simple physical signal (like exposure to light) being converted into DNA information, sort of like a Morse code encoding words into DNA. I wonder what possible mechanisms one could use to facilitate that... But even encoding something simple like "Hello world" would be a huge deal, and have big ramifications on areas such as commercial gene synthesis. | |||
<b>Synthetic Taxis</b> | <b>Synthetic Taxis</b> | ||
Develop some sort of Kalman filter-like circuit or some other signal processing circuit to detect or track pathogens. The [http://www.qb3.org/cpl/ UCSF/UCB Center for Engineering Cellular Control Systems] has started to look at some similar problems. | Develop some sort of Kalman filter-like circuit or some other signal processing circuit to detect or track pathogens. The [http://www.qb3.org/cpl/ UCSF/UCB Center for Engineering Cellular Control Systems] has started to look at some similar problems. | ||
Revision as of 08:05, 19 March 2008
This page will soon host the website of the MIT team for iGEM 2008
For now it is being used for initial planning. The graduate student advisors need to have a meeting soon to discuss a number of points (scheduled for March 19, 10am in the Stata Center cafeteria).
The agenda is (please edit!):
- Scheduling interviews and finalizing the undergrad team
- Preparing the UROP application
- Brainstorming initial project ideas
- Creating a website for the 2008 team (probably based on 2007 page IGEM:MIT/2007)
- For help setting up a team lab notebook, please contact User: Ricardo Vidal. He's working with OpenWetWare at MIT this year, and could help you all get familiar with some new tools that update the notebook since last year's iGEM notebooks. - Jason R. Kelly
- Should we schedule a regular meeting?
Brainstorming Project Ideas
Information Storage Device
I was thinking a bit about information storage. There have been a whole slew of papers that suggest storing artificial messages in DNA. A few representative examples are
- C. Bancroft, T. Bowler, B. Bloom, and C. T. Clelland, "Long-Term Storage of Information in DNA," Science, vol. 293, no. 5536, pp. 1763-1765, Sept. 2001.
- P. C. Wong, K.-K. Wong, and H. Foote, "Organic data memory using the DNA approach," Commun. ACM, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 95–98, Jan. 2003.
- J. P. L. Cox, "Long-term data storage in DNA," Trends in Biotechnology, vol. 19, no. 7, pp. 247-250, July 2001.
All of these works envision long-term storage where complicated cloning techniques with restriction enzymes, oligonucleotide synthesis or PCR, and ligation would be used for storage. I don't know much at all about this, but are there ways of making a storage device where it is moderately easy to change what is written in the memory? Basically designing some kind of encoder and decoder that makes DNA more of a rewritable medium rather than just a long-term storage medium. A related question is whether there might be a way to introduce an error-correcting circuit along the lines of
- M. G. Taylor, "Reliable information storage in memories designed from unreliable components," Bell Syst. Tech. J., vol. 47, no. 10, pp. 2299–2337, Dec. 1968.
There are probably more easily editable means of biological information storage that are more worthy of exploration.
- cookb: Hmm, that's an interesting idea and quote original for iGEM. I'm getting an image of some sort of simple physical signal (like exposure to light) being converted into DNA information, sort of like a Morse code encoding words into DNA. I wonder what possible mechanisms one could use to facilitate that... But even encoding something simple like "Hello world" would be a huge deal, and have big ramifications on areas such as commercial gene synthesis.
Synthetic Taxis
Develop some sort of Kalman filter-like circuit or some other signal processing circuit to detect or track pathogens. The UCSF/UCB Center for Engineering Cellular Control Systems has started to look at some similar problems.
