Team:TU-Eindhoven/Timeline
In January we went over old iGEM projects to get inspiration for our project. We also divided some roles, such as WIKI Captain, Model Captain, Lab Captain and more.
We brainstormed with the team and came up with some new ideas and did some further in depth research regarding some of these ideas. The sponsoring started by setting up a sponsor proposition.
We decided on a final project idea and made a project proposition for our advisors. We officially registered for the iGEM competition. A planning was made to ensure deadlines would be met and not forgotten.
In April we were planning how we were going to achieve our goals in the lab, we began the search for sponsors, and started the design of both our proteins and our team design.
In May we started working on our PR via social media and contacting other iGEM teams. We have created a solid yet flexible sponsoring and wet lab plan and chose our logo. We started learning HTML and CSS to create this WIKI and made our first design of the site. Also, in May our first modelling results were received and processed.
In June we designed and ordered our DNA sequences in the form of gBlocks. We also started a collaboration with the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, addressing problems of regulation of the current system regarding GMOs. We finished our protein design and incorporated this into our labwork. Halfway June, our semester ended, allowing us to concentrate on our iGEM project full-time.
Our first full-time month of working on our project did not go as smoothly as we had hoped: One Gibson assembly simply did not work, no matter what we tried. Sadly enough, this one happened to be our most important protein, the scaffold itself. Despite the setbacks we still made some progress and had some fun, we visited Paris to attend the European Experience Convention aimed at all Europe’s iGEM teams, organized by iGEM Evry and iGEM Ionis.
After we put the unfortunate July behind us, we recovered quickly in August. In just two weeks the seeds of our sponsoring bore fruit and the finances of our project was going smoothly! Our back-up plans succeeded and most of our DNA was successfully synthesized. We also reached the second to last Major milestone, meaning the decision to go to Boston became definite!. Lastly, we created a model to determine properties of our proteins with the lab data.
Due to our delay in July, we were not able to complete our labwork before our study year started again, so the pressure was on! We expressed and purified our proteins and started our first measurements. Preparations for our final presentation in Boston now also started.
During the busy month of October we wrapped up our data gathering and processed our results. Of course we also continued practicing our presentation, finalizing our poster and our WIKI like madmen to finish everything properly and in time. We are looking forward to attending the Giant Jamboree, meeting many other iGEM teams and hopefully win a prize to bring back home. See you in Boston!
