Difference between revisions of "Team:Uppsala/Description"

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<h2> Microfluidics
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    <h2> Microfluidics <h2>
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<h3> What we have been up to
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      <p>The Uppsala team was started up in January with introductory meetings and brainstorming of project ideas. The iGEM Uppsala association recruited two project leaders from earlier iGEM Uppsala teams. These project leaders were then in charge of recruiting and leading the team itself. Anyone interested in iGEM were welcome to the introductory meeting and to help with the brainstorming. The potential projects were researched further to decide on the viability of each idea as an iGEM project. Researchers and university staff that have been involved in the iGEM Uppsala project earlier years were invited to give input on the ideas. With their feedback and questions in mind, further research was done. </p>
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<p>We are in the process of making a microfluidic device that will be used for cell transformation. Hitherto, we have been able to 3D print a couple of designs and discuss our final design. After we 3D print a mold that is satisfactory, we will bake PDMS on it and can later begin to test our chip. During our first trials we would like to keep things simple in order to make troubleshooting as painless of a process as possible. Therefore, we have decided to start off with the heat shock method of transformation. Our initial thoughts are to have a channel on the chip running with cells and plasmids and a parallel channel with temperature regulated water. With this technique we hope to be able to expose CaCl2 competent cells to a heat shock preceded and followed by low temperatures; much like a conventional heat shock.
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Moreover we are in the process of calculating the cost for an ordinary heat shock. The reason for this being that one of our main goals is to make cell transformation more affordable. </p>
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<h3>Plans for electroporation
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<h2>Day of Decision </h2>
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<p>One of our final goals is to produce a chip that enables electroporation. The best way to perform electroporation on a chip (as read in literature) is to use droplet techniques. That is, droplets of cell growth medium and cells separated by nonconductive material. The most common nonconductive material used is fluorinated oil. These oils are generally expensive, hard to find and may be toxic. For this reason we are considering separating droplets with gas; more precisely N2.</p>
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<p>The 7th of April was decided as the day of Decision, when we would irrefutably chose a project . During the weeks before Decision day,  projects with low interest were abandoned to allow more research on other potential ideas. As the day of Decision was upon us, only four projects remained. The team decided to choose project by majority decision, where the chosen project has to have more than 50% of the votes. Only team members voted in a closed poll, and as the project leaders held the selection process they decided to exclude themselves from the decision. After the first round, two of the project ideas differed by only one vote. The other two projects received one and no votes respectively. These two were removed from the next round of voting. The votes were read up one by one, which led to much excitement. The projects took turns of being in the lead, but when all votes had been read, one project was chosen with nine votes against seven. This project, CRISPR on a Chip, was what would fill our days and dreams the following months. Obviously the decision was celebrated by the team going out together for dinner at one of Uppsalas student pubs. </p>
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<h2>The months leading up to the summer </h2>
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<p>With only one project to focus on, the research picked up a new pace. Taking a lesson from what was learnt by last years team, the first round of gene synthesis was planned for the middle of May. This would hopefully allow us to have what we need when we received access to a lab. Having 18 students in the team required good organization and smaller working groups. With this in mind, three lab groups were put together by mixing biology, biotechnology and chemistry students in each group. Further research were done in these lab groups, though research came to a halt right before lab start due to exams. At the 7th of June we stepped into the course lab that we were assigned, as the 6th of June is a national holiday in Sweden. While making buffers and preparing competent cells, a complete plan for the summer was set up. </p>
  
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Next week, we hope to bake our chip and start running experiments with it.
 
 
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Revision as of 14:17, 30 June 2016


Microfluidics

The Uppsala team was started up in January with introductory meetings and brainstorming of project ideas. The iGEM Uppsala association recruited two project leaders from earlier iGEM Uppsala teams. These project leaders were then in charge of recruiting and leading the team itself. Anyone interested in iGEM were welcome to the introductory meeting and to help with the brainstorming. The potential projects were researched further to decide on the viability of each idea as an iGEM project. Researchers and university staff that have been involved in the iGEM Uppsala project earlier years were invited to give input on the ideas. With their feedback and questions in mind, further research was done.

Day of Decision

The 7th of April was decided as the day of Decision, when we would irrefutably chose a project . During the weeks before Decision day, projects with low interest were abandoned to allow more research on other potential ideas. As the day of Decision was upon us, only four projects remained. The team decided to choose project by majority decision, where the chosen project has to have more than 50% of the votes. Only team members voted in a closed poll, and as the project leaders held the selection process they decided to exclude themselves from the decision. After the first round, two of the project ideas differed by only one vote. The other two projects received one and no votes respectively. These two were removed from the next round of voting. The votes were read up one by one, which led to much excitement. The projects took turns of being in the lead, but when all votes had been read, one project was chosen with nine votes against seven. This project, CRISPR on a Chip, was what would fill our days and dreams the following months. Obviously the decision was celebrated by the team going out together for dinner at one of Uppsalas student pubs.

The months leading up to the summer

With only one project to focus on, the research picked up a new pace. Taking a lesson from what was learnt by last years team, the first round of gene synthesis was planned for the middle of May. This would hopefully allow us to have what we need when we received access to a lab. Having 18 students in the team required good organization and smaller working groups. With this in mind, three lab groups were put together by mixing biology, biotechnology and chemistry students in each group. Further research were done in these lab groups, though research came to a halt right before lab start due to exams. At the 7th of June we stepped into the course lab that we were assigned, as the 6th of June is a national holiday in Sweden. While making buffers and preparing competent cells, a complete plan for the summer was set up.