Our project could not have existed without the following people, and we are eternally grateful for their contributions.
“TOOLBOX” FORMULATION
University of Cambridge, Department of Plant Sciences
Prof. Jim Haseloff, for giving us our one week introductory course to iGEM and synthetic biology, and continuous general advice
Dr. Susana Sauret-Gueto, for regularly checking on our work and giving very useful feedback
Dr. Moritz Meyer, for his help and support in the lab, not just with practical advice but with his constant sense of humour and unlimited patience
Aleix Gorchs-Rovira, for always being able to answer our endless questions on PCR and cloning, as well as help with the Golden Gate design (another example of endless patience)
Dr. Payam Mehrshahi, for his always kind words, interest in the project development and help with protocols and analysis of results.
Dr. Doris Gangl, for advice on strain selection with regards to biological containment, and working with Chlamydomonas.
Dr. Francisco Navarro, for giving us insight on the measurement of fluorescence in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
Dr. Steven Burgess, for his continuous support, information about the Phytobricks standard and the design of our library of parts.
Christian Boehm, for the advice on protein expression in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and for allowing us to use his novel fluorescent reporters (mVenus and mCerulean).
Dr. Fernan Federici and Mr. Bernardo Pollak, for their advice on the use of the CRISPR/Cas9 system and the general feedback on our homoplasmy strategy.
Other sources of help
Prof. Saul Purton, University College London, for continuous advice in working towards a homoplasmic chloroplast transformation in Chlamydomonas
Marco Larrea Alvarez, University College London (Purton lab), for advice on working with Chlamydomonas, as well as inviting us to UCL to work through some difficulties with the system and receive feedback on what parts would be useful to the research community
Dr. Nicola Patron, Earlham Institute, for helping us with define our Cas9 strategy, and practical advice on the using CRISPR-Cas9 safely
Dr. Sarah Richardson, Ignition Genomics, for discussing our project with us.
Dr. Jim Ajioka, University of Cambridge, Department of Pathology, for discussing our project with us.
Prof. Tom Knight, Ginkgo Bioworks, for discussing our project with us.
WETLAB
University of Cambridge, Department of Plant Sciences
Dr. Susana Sauret-Gueto, for guidance in our experimental design, and great advice on how to manage and arrange a lab for maximum efficiency
Dr. Moritz Meyer, for teaching us how to make TAP growth medium, culture Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, amplify DNA plasmids in bacteria and extract them, and performing biolistics. Also for providing some consumables, especially for biolistics.
Dr Payam Mehrshahi and Mr. Aleix Gorchs-Rivera, for all the help and advice on the molecular cloning strategies and analysis of results.
Dr. Farhat Nazir, for laboratory supervision in the second half of our project, explaining how to use devices and what to be cautious about in lab procedures
Barbara Landamore, for giving a safety training, providing standard laboratory equipment and help with technical issues and organisation in the lab
Linda Silvestri, for donating her stocks of competent cells, and helping us manage our lab consumables, hardware part orders, and funding
Gabriela Doria, for helping us to run a few experiments
Dr. Katrin Geisler, helped us with the biolistics procedure
Other sources of help
Prof. Saul Purton, University College London, for providing us a series of chloroplast transformation vectors and the TN72 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii strain, as well as help with protocols and analysis of molecular cloning with Chlamydomonas
Dr. Orr Yarkoni, University of Cambridge Department of Pathology, supplied four fluorescent protein-marked plasmids which were included in our part library
Yan-kay Ho, Cambridge Consultants, for biology advice as well as information on the iGEM competition
Integrated DNA Technologies, for free synthesis of several genetic parts
Dutscher Scientific, for supplying hundreds of sterile pipette tips
New England Biolabs, for supplying competent E. coli cells and Gibson Assembly kits
Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge for providing us with laboratory space and support from many of its members.
LiU iGEM team for sharing weekly reports and for skype meetings to follow up on each other’s work and advice on protocols
GROWTH FACILITY
Tom Parker, Cambridge Consultants, for advice on the electronics and circuitry of the growth facility
Prof. Tim Wilkinson, University of Cambridge Department of Engineering, for advice on the electronics and circuitry of the growth facility
Dyson Centre, Cambridge University Engineering Department for the use of their laser cutter and computers
Electrical and Information Engineering Teaching Lab, Cambridge University Engineering Department for supply of solder and copper wire
Tobias Wenzel, University of Cambridge, for advice on structuring our open source documentation
GENE GUN
Tom Parker, Cambridge Consultants, for advice on the safe design of the gun’s circuitry and wiring
Tom Collings, Cambridge Consultants, for advice on the gun’s pressure testing and sealing connections
Dyson Centre, Cambridge University Engineering Department for the use of their laser cutter and workshop in the construction of the gun
Electrical and Information Engineering Teaching Lab, Cambridge University Engineering Department for checking the wiring and circuitry of the gun
Jay Hanson, Biocoder, for advice and information about their own DIY gene gun
Jose Alberto Martins, Bio-rad laboratories ltd, for providing information about the cost of commercial biolistics systems
MODELLING
Prof. Howard Salis, Penn State University, for his continuous help in adaptation of his own CRISPR/Cas9 kinetic model, including supply of his team’s free energy parameters and code, and general advice on dealing with the dynamic regimes of Cas9 action
Dr. Alexandre Kabla, University of Cambridge, for checking over the general form of the model, and advising on strategies for practical implementations
HUMAN PRACTICES
Michael Broadwith & Michelle Humberstone, Watford Grammar School for Girls, for coordinating the logistics and photography of our talk to their students
Imane Emma Baïz, for inviting us to present our ideas at the Biodesign and Nightscience conference which she organised
Tobias Wenzel, University of Cambridge, for his interview around his open source documentation platform, DocuBricks
Dr. Lara Allen, Centre for Global Equality, for meeting with us to discuss how best to assess our project’s impact on community labs
Lena Asai, Juanma Garcia, Ke Fang, Paloma Portela and Juliette Lenouvel, for organising the interdisciplinary Co-Lab workshop which we attended
GENERAL HELP
Katya Nikitina and Dr. Jenny Molloy, University of Cambridge Department of Plant Sciences, for performing a variety of crucial administrative work for the team
Yan-Kay Ho, James Hallinan, Mary Karavaggelis, Pari Datta, and Dr. Richard Hammond, Cambridge Consultants, for advice on the structure of our Jamboree presentation
Yan-kay Ho and Mary Karavaggelis, Cambridge Consultants, for a variety of general advice and information on the iGEM competition
James Hallinan, Cambridge Consultants, for advice on boosting our online presence
Debbie Mayhew, Cambridge Consultants, for publishing several guest blogs for us
Mark Easey, Cambridge Consultants, for designing our Jamboree T-shirt
Kher Xing Chan (Cindy), for providing us with equipment and introducing us to Benchling, but most importantly for being such a friendly face around the department and giving the occasional (very necessary) motivational speech.
Helene Steiner, Microsoft Research Cambridge, for helping us with the design and presentation
Doing It Together EU fund, for funding our presentation at the Biodesign and Nightscience Conference
The Wellcome Trust, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the Society for Experimental Biology, for paying our stipends
The University of Cambridge Department of Plant Sciences, Cambridge Consultants, the John Innes Centre, and OpenPlant, for general funding
ABOUT US
We are a team of Cambridge undergraduates, competing for the plant synthetic biology prize in iGEM 2016.
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LOCATION
Department of Plant Sciences,
University of Cambridge
Downing Street
CB2 3EA
