BYU iGEM/Papers

Syllabus
[Syllabus 2011]

Who We Are
In keeping with BYU's tradition of excellence, our team will represent the university at the iGEM competition in Boston later this year. This will be the first year that a team from BYU will be competing and we plan to demonstrate what Cougars can do. Our team is composed of nine undergraduate students with future ambitions in bioengineering, medicine, dentistry, and software engineering. Our nine members not only represent nine states (Ohio, Virginia, Utah, Arizona, California, Indiana, Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico), but also speak seven languages: Portuguese, Cape Verdean Creole, Spanish, Thai, Italian, Japanese, and…English!

Our Goals
"Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States when men and women are considered separately,and the second leading cause when both sexes are combined." -American Cancer Society

This statistic is staggering. Being able to detect potentially malignant polyps early in the disease's progression is helping reduce these numbers. But what if we could detect colon cancer even before a polyp develops? Our goal is to develop a robust and accurate early warning platform capable of detecting colon cancer when it is still in its early cellular stages. We will engineer Escherichia Coli, a bacteria already present in the human intestinal tract, to detect the unique by-products of colon cancer and report its presence to the diseased individual.

How You Can Help
Our ability to compete depends on having access to sufficient funds and high quality laboratory materials. Below is a list of supplies that are essential to our success. Fundamental Supplies: 1000 1.5mL microcentrifuge tubes, 2 PCR optimization kits and enough buffer & reagents for 500 reactions, 1000 15mL conical vials, 1000 50mL conical vials, 5000 p200 pipette tips, 5000 p1000 pipette tips, 500 p10 pipette tips, 250 5mL disposable pipettes, 250 10mL disposable pipettes, 250 25mL disposable pipettes, 1kg bacterial growth media, 1kg yeast growth media, 2g ampicillin, 2g tetracycline, 2g kanamyocin, $1500 for plasmid vectors, and enough plasmid isolation kits to do 1000 reactions.

By donating funds or providing any of the supplies above, you will contribute to the success of BYU, its team members, and the survival and quality of life of those afflicted with colon cancer everywhere.

The iGEM Competition
In 2003, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed a class with the directive to allow students to design their own biological systems. The following year, MIT expanded the course into an intercollegiate competition now known as the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM).

Over the years, this competition has grown substantially in participation and prestige. In 2010, iGEM welcomed 130 teams from all over the world to participate in the November conference by presenting their projects.

Engineering biology is difficult because of the enormous complexity inherent in living systems. The iGEM competition seeks to rectify this problem by developing a repository of well-described biological parts, useful for engineering novel systems. By developing such a resource, design can be separated from fabrication, accelerating the progress of synthetic biology. As the field of synthetic biology matures, we can expect real-world applications in medicine, energy, and biotechnology.

In addition to the above benefits, the iGEM competition gives undergraduate students the opportunity to apply their growing knowledge to the real world in a fun and exciting way.

Contact Us
Dr. David Kooyman at 801-422-6399 david_kooyman@byu.edu

or

Dr. Julianne Grose at 801-422-4940 julianne_grose@byu.edu

BYU iGEM Team

385 WIDB

Brigham Young University

Provo, UT 84602

or visit our webpage: http://openwetware.org/wiki/BYU_iGEM

Pictures
Team pictures

Lab scenes

BYU iGEM Logo