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Week 1

Monday 2nd July 2007

Very exciting! Today we moved into our new lab in the recently rebuilt Bower Building under the university tower. Maija is thrilled about having her very own brand new high spec top of the range pipettes (bog standard really). Managed to apprehend a spare fridge (Team Building Exercise Number 1) and discovered that Maia is just as strong as the boys. The day was mainly organized around tutorials and seminars where we planned several phases of the project. We were also introduced to the Bower Common Room and Christine's sandwich was good.

Tuesday 3rd July 2007

Graduation Day! Maia, Scott (looking great in his kilt) and Peter all graduated on a lovely Scottish summer's day (rained cats and dogs – all day!). In the lab we plated gels and prepared antibiotic stocks. Also registered with iGEM. Christine's sandwich was frozen in the middle and did not defrost too well.

Wednesday 4th July 2007

More gels plated and rummaged for plasmids in the deep freeze. The dry lab part of the team did an excellent job of extracting DNA with miniprep kits and ran the gels for them by themselves. Rachel said she appreciates the patience the wet lab people must have to do this kind of thing. We'd have her back anytime. Began to find our way around the iGEM 2007 wiki hunting for useful biobricks. Sandwich was the most disappointing so far. Soggy in the middle.

Thursday 5th July 2007

Scott was the first one to figure out how to find biobricks in the DNA Parts Kit. He and Maija transformed some biobricks which we may find useful into competent E. coli. Peter has gone to Russia “for research purposes” but we all say “Hi” to his family. Christine and Maia researched restriction enzymes for the plasmids we plated and miniprepped. Gave the sandwich less time to defrost. Progress.

Friday 6th July 2007

Best sandwich of the week! Anyway, made some snazzy media (we're trying to make this sound good) and pretty stocks for making media. Maija and Christine did a power workshop (sounding good yet?) with Emma and learned how to use BioEdit and Primer3 to design some sexy primers. We're well chuffed. Is it sad that we find this sort of thing really cool? Scott and Maia have gone to T in the Park music festival. Christine couldn't get tickets. She hopes it rains. Not really. Have fun!

Our lovely University tower

Scott, Christine and Maia in the lab on the first day. Exciting!