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Individual Contributions

The premise for this year's Berkeley iGEM project was based on the winner of the "Bears Breaking Boundaries 2007 - Synthetic Biology Contest." For this competition, undergraduate students submitted white papers describing proposed applications of synthetic biology. The essays were judged by a panel of faculty, postdocs, and graduate students. The winning essay Escherichia coli Based Red Blood Cell Substitutes: Cheap, High Volume, and Totally Awesome was submitted by team member Austin Day. The project was then further developed through discussions with the project's advisors.

The chassis for the project was built from genetic devices constructed for the Tumor-Killing Bacteria project by Chris Anderson and Austin Day in the Adam Arkin lab. A wbbL/neuS constitutive-expression device that was specific to the the Bactoblood project was constructed by team member Arthur Yu, and the resulting strain was characterized by Samantha Liang and Austin Day.

The design for the controller came from discussions between team member David Tulga and Chris Anderson. The R6K BAC plasmid, T7-GFP reporter strain GH455G, and plasmid pBACr-AraGFP were developed previously by Chris Anderson, but all other elements of the system were cloned by the students. Arthur Yu identified, cloned, and characterized the iron-responsive part. The BBb-format pSC101 plasmid, T7 promoter variants, T7 RNA polymerase, and pir gene parts were cloned and characterized by David Tulga as was the construction and tuning of the RBS library for T7 RNA polymerase. Tuning of the RBS for the pir gene was performed by David Tulga and Chris Anderson.

Cloning, construction, and characterization of the heme biosynthesis cassette was performed by Kristin Doan. The hemoglobin, AHSP, and other "chaperone" genes were synthesized as BBb basic parts by DNA2.0 and Geneart. All composite parts containing these genes were designed, constructed, and characterized by Austin Day and Vaibhavi Umesh. The myoglobin and H-NOX were designed, constructed, and characterized by Hannah Cole.

The kill switch was designed, constructed, and characterized by Samantha Liang. The desiccation parts were designed, constructed, and characterized by Vincent Parker and Nhu Nguyen.

The circuit diagrams, icons, and animated iGEM logo were designed and constructed by David Tulga. The main page color scheme and organization were designed in collaboration by Samantha Liang and David Tulga.

The human practices component of our project was contributed by Kristin Fuller under the guidance of Anthony Stavrianakis, Gaymon Bennett, Paul Rabinow, Jennifer Saionz, and Maryanne McCormick.

Finally, all general lab duties (plate and gel pouring, competent cell production, ordering) were performed by the students. Day-to-day activities were supervised and guided by John Dueber, Chris Anderson, Farnaz Nowroozi, Amin Hajimorad, and Rickey Bonds with extensive administrative support provided by Kate Spohr, Kevin Costa, and Gwyneth Terry (thanks!).