Melbourne/meeting 20 April 2007

From 2007.igem.org

<list of minutes> <Back to team home page> Author: Jan

2nd Meeting Meeting Date : 20/4/07

Present : Lei, Alisa, Katya, Phil, Jan, Patricia Apologies: Prof. Cheng (Holiday)

PLEASE MODIFY accordingly, i'm sure there are some mistakes, :P

Agenda Points: PROJECT ADMIN/DESCRIPTION - welcome Patrica! - flesh out the two ideas from last week (liquid/blob wars and bioremediation) - identify actions, so that registration can begin and the funding domino begins to fall.


ACTIONS FROM LAST MEETING - suggest to put up small bios once the wiki is started

   - ongoing, dependent on registration

- project description to be clarified next week. then proposal to be fleshed out from there.

   - addressed in summary below

- clarify how much funding we need (have a target... ) as this determines the number of team members that we can have and therefore send to MIT at the end of the year

   - ongoing, but normal fiscal procedures should begin once registration complete and funding starts to come in.

- contact prospective sources and clarify

   - ongoing (katja contacted david tribe, lei and jan to talk to david smith this week, Patricia will talk to TJ Higgins? this week)

- all to join google groups, lei to send out invitations.

   - complete !

- Jan to post minutes :)

   - :)

- lei to determine possible regular location.

   - complete i think? ... the room with the disappering sink? is this the regular location as i am to understand.

- phil, jan to elaborate/collaborate on this and present preliminary proposal/poster at next meeting, ALL papers to be posted and commented on google groups.

   - completed by Phil refer to file "Bouyant Bacteria project description1.pdf" 

- lei, alisa, katya to elaborate/collaborate on this and present preliminary proposal/poster at next meeting

   - semi-completed by Phil, refer to file "BLOB WARS.pdf"

- all to read introductory paper on synbio posted by lei.

   - completed as far as i know.

- email and other contact details to be exchanged (lei can you start a page on the group with everyone's email)

   - completed, google groups :)

- contact personal network for technical support (possible supervisory roles) and funding

   - ongoing

- exit strategies if one of the components fails.

   - ongoing

SUMMARY - Patrica welcome to the team :) - she identified, TJ Higgins?, possible collaboration, plant biologist from Canberra. patricia to keep in contact.

- fleshing out of the two ideas.

   phil went through the two documents that he generated. 
   
   bioremediation - split into 4 separate stages (refer to document) 
   1st stage, gas vesicle formation, most feasible at this point. 
   other still require more research. 
   for 1st stage - proposal regarding the methods/procedures and equipment/reagents is relatively complete... rough economics also calculated.
   
   liquid/blob wars - possible circuits developed, ... NOR gate/ RS flip-flop... 
   lei - only pathway known is for the rhodpsin
   still need to develop to the extent of the bioremediation proposal


- the NEW idea... as per phil's post ... biological holography.

   combine the two known parts of the ideas above...
   the red/blue light signalling pathway and the neutral buoyancy from the gas vesicles....
   the intersection of two lights synchronously expresses the relevant pigments and cadherins (adhesion proteins) at the surface. These bind will remaining neutrally buoyant, giving us a 3D     shape. 
   we all likely this idea... it's very 'sexy' in a biological sense... cool visual that can easily be understood by anyone, with significant novelty
   introduces new parts to biobricks, and creates a novel system using existing... a lot of positives.

- regarding registration

   we have the funds (from biomedical eng.) but need to get the OK from Paul Gooley, so that lei can register with MIT
   this involves... $1000 for the team registration and $3000 to order the kit (don't know what's in it ??)

- impromptu meeting with Paul Gooley.

   walked over to Bio21, and discussed all ideas described above.
   Paul thought the holography idea had the most traction, and gave us some pointers to improve the proposal
      - ie. clarify the aim/vision of the project, formatting...    
   Paul also identified the need to get all admin/logistic tasks finished by the end of exams, so that nothing will impede us during the break. I think this is something good to focus on.

ACTION POINTS

 - lei, i wasn't sure if you wanted to keep on developing the two proposal outlined originally. But i think there was general consensus that combing the two... for the bacterial holography idea. 
 - in which we should compile the two documents that phil made into one, proposing the holography idea.
 - katja, patrician, alisa and  lei all mentioned they would have sometime this week to work on this. 
 - lei (and paul gooley) to register with MIT.
 - proposal to be completed by friday's meeting. or at least almost complete :)
 - once proposal is complete we can submit to Paul Gleeson