Caltech iGEM Bootcamp 2011

What
To help the Caltech 2011 iGEM students get started with wet lab work, we will be holding a brief bootcamp on methods and lab techniques. The goal is twofold - to ensure the students are comfortable with standard microbiological techniques and that the students are aware of the tools available to them down the road.

We're putting the curriculum up on OpenWetWare to help any other teams that might be interested in a similar system. More detail will appear as the time draws nearer.

Tentative Schedule
The bootcamp will happen either {6/6 and 6/7} or {6/20 and 6/21}. The summer term starts on 6/15, though we expect a couple of days will be consumed by move-in, safety orientation, and such. A * indicates a lab technique we are tentatively planning on practicing on that particular day.

Monday: DNA Manipulation

 * Lab Safety*
 * Equipment
 * Aseptic/sterile technique*
 * Pipetting*
 * Pipetting volatile chemicals*
 * Pipetting viscous chemicals*
 * DNA Manipulation and Assembly
 * Minipreps*
 * Restriction Digests*
 * PCR*
 * Primer design & ordering
 * PCR troubleshooting
 * Library creation / error-prone PCR
 * Gibson Assembly*
 * Ligation
 * Bioinformatics
 * Geneious
 * Blast/ExPASY/etc
 * KEGG/Brenda
 * Genbank
 * Gel electrophoresis & gel extraction of DNA*
 * Cloning and transformation
 * Making competent cells
 * Chemical transformation*
 * Electroporation
 * Selections and nuances of antibiotics
 * Microbiology & Metagenomics
 * Gene fishing
 * Metagenomic libraries
 * DNA extraction from environmental samples*
 * Culturing and identification techniques*
 * Sequencing
 * Sanger sequencing*
 * 2nd generation sequencing techniques
 * Long-term storage of biological constructs*

Tuesday: Measurement

 * Microscopy
 * Phase contrast*
 * Confocal
 * DIC
 * Fluorescence*
 * AFM
 * EM
 * Spectroscopy
 * Circular dichroism
 * UV-Vis*
 * Raman
 * High-throughput techniques
 * Flow cytometry*
 * 96-well plate format data collection and growth*
 * Enzymology
 * Kinetics*
 * Protein purification
 * Crystallography
 * Western blots
 * Miscellaneous
 * Reagent storage
 * HPLC
 * FPLC
 * Thin-layer chromatography
 * ELISA
 * Western blots
 * Literature search techniques*
 * Biological patents and industrial landscape
 * Ecology, mutualism, and co-culture techniques

Instructors

 * Richard Murray
 * Joseph T. Meyerowitz
 * Emzo de los Santos
 * Nate Glasser