Team:Michigan/Experiments
Public Engagement
Synthetic biology has a long way to being completely accepted by the public, mainly due to lack of education about the subject. The Michigan Synthetic Biology Team held a few workshops in order to excite and incite younger generations to pursue synthetic biology!
Isolated LacZ from iGem part BBa_K564012
1) Rehydrated DNA from distribution kit
2) Transformed into DH5a chemically competent cells
3) Extracted plasmid
4) PCR mutagenesis to engineer desired cut sites around LacZ
Ann Arbor Health Hacks
We competed (and won a $500 award) in a health hackathon organized by Ann Arbor Health Hacks from June 14-16, 2016. Hackathons like these bring people with diverse backgrounds together to solve problems that they propose. We took our basic Aptapaper idea and through talking with the other hackathon participants worked to envision a version that could help diagnose heart disease.The hackathon was actually where we came up with the idea to use proximity dependent ligation instead of a toehold switch for our design. As part of the hackathon, we interacted with the other 200 or so participants from all different health related fields, teaching them about synthetic biology as they taught us about aspects of their particular field that were relevant to our project.
Girls in Science and Engineering (GISE)
In mid-June, the team helped out with the University of Michigan's GISE summer camp. We held two sessions where we showed middle-school girls how to extract DNA from strawberries and their own spit--an integral technique in synthetic biology! Aside from the activities, we explained the basics of genetics and synthetic biology. Despite the numerous spills and messes, the girls were intrigued with how the spidery liquid (full of their own DNA) contained in the microcentrifuge tube held all the instructions for their bodies! Hopefully, they'll be the next generation of Michigan Synthetic Biologists!
