IGEM:Stanford/2010/Notebook/20 April 2010

Meeting Agenda

 * 1) Quick announcements: ASURPS, funding, etc.
 * 2) Presentations
 * 3) Discussion of project idea feasibility
 * 4) Goals for next week's meeting

Meeting Notes
Alex Virrueta

Vesicular Transport (*)

1. Previous Paris Team wanted to engineer superhighways across for communication: could pick up on this project?

2. Work on a project that deals with minicell production, targeting and packaging (possibly talk to Jerome Bonnet?)

3. Possibility of scaling up work done with single molecule transport (talk to Monica Ortiz in Endy's lab?)

Long Distance Communication

1. Discussed the possibility of making vibrating cells

Greg Owen

Brain-related projects: Increasing Neuron Efficiency, Myelin regeneration

1. Questions were raised concerning the feasibility of the application


 * Perhaps these neurons would become more susceptible to noise?


 * Could have adverse effects on other neuron functions

2. One possible application would be increasing the firing rate of muscles

Wound Treatment (*)

1. Try and establish a beneficial infection to avoid unwanted infections in the wound

2. Engineer classes of microbes that prevent the colonization of other microbes

3. Avoid detection by the immune system

Karina Padilla

Pre-term labor indicator (*)

1. Unique idea and applicable to wide range of fields involving mechanical stress detection (bone regeneration, cell growth, etc.)

2. Downsides: Hard to determine the level of oxytocin - relation to pre-term labor.

3. Liked signal integration scheme in slides

4. First, we may need to determine baseline levels of oxytocin or progesterone - too complex?

Francisco Cai

Trash-eating bacteria (*)

1. Nice idea with related research being done on campus already: Craig Criddle's lab in Y2E2

2. Expand the ideas so that the bacteria generate something that plants can use later.

Desalination (*)

1. Huge problem, any traction is good

2. Light-powered water purification system is the best scenario

3. Downsides: difficult to pump water across a membrane

4. Possibly use reverse methods to pump everything else (but water) out?

5. Literature reports of bacteria that have water purification properties?

Chris Brunson

Oil spill clean-up (*)

1. Sequestering oil and easy collection of material is key to a project of this type

2. Possibly form a dialysis-bag like object that collect oil?

Clotting 

1. Negative feedback system that shuts down the bacterial clotter

2. Bacteria stay on surface so we don't have to worry about immunogenicity issues

3. Value of creating bacteria if there are already in vitro and cheap ways to make clotting factors

Presentations
Please link here with the following title format (yourname_Presentation1)











Comments
Hi everyone:

From what I've heard, Tuesday from 7:00-8:30a is the best time for everyone to meet. We'll be meeting at this time (7:00-8:30a) on every Tuesday, starting this week (i.e. there will be a meeting on Tuesday, April 20). Meetings will be held in our usual room, Y2E2 rm. 105. I know this a difficult (and very early!) time to meet but it is imperative that everyone attends and is on time so that we can have very productive meetings. Coordinating these meetings has made us realize how busy we all are. Hence, both Christina and Drew want me to emphasize the importance of remaining extremely committed to the team. We have less than six months before the Jamboree and it critical that everyone set aside an appropriate amount of time for iGEM. Having said that, the team is off to a great start and I'm sure we'll do exceptionally well!

For the next meeting, everyone (undergrad, grad students, etc.) should look thorough the presentations that have been linked to our wiki. If possible, jot down a few thoughts so we can have a basis for discussing the presentations. Some things to think about:


 * 1) Is this project idea that has a lot of potential?
 * 2) Why does it have a lot of potential?
 * 3) What ways can it be improved?
 * 4) Where would you go to being improving on the idea (i.e. what are the weak points and how would you fix them)?

The presentations are under the "presentation" section of the April 5 Gen. Meeting under the "Notebook" tab. Let me know if you have any questions. See you early Tuesday morning!

Anusuya