IGEM:Harvard/2010/Journal Club

Join the Google Group for email updates about journal club meetings!

April 20 2010
This week we will be discussing Levskaya et al. "Spatiotemporal control of cell signalling using a light-switchable protein interaction"

April 6 2010
This week we will be discussing a paper that describes an iGEM team’s efforts to build a DNA-based computer that functions in living bacteria:

Engineering bacteria to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem 2008, Journal of Biological Engineering 

Enjoy! See you this Tuesday.

March 22 2010
We'll be discussing [http://pubs.acs.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/doi/abs/10.1021/ja809461u Bayer et. al.] "Synthesis of Methyl Halides from Biomass Using Engineered Microbes," focusing on the novel methods presented.

March 8 2010
We'll discuss building biological circuits that compute Boolean logic: [http://www.nature.com/msb/journal/v3/n1/full/msb4100173.html Anderson et. al.] "Environmental signal integration by a modular AND gate."

March 1st 2010
today is the DEADLINE for applying to iGEM!!!

we're so excited about meeting the applicants and putting together an awesome 2010 team.

February 23rd 2010
transcription-based circuits: synthetic toggle switch in e. coli

on tuesday, february 23rd, we met once again (!) and discussed this paper:

construction of a genetic toggle switch in Escherichia coli gardner, et al, nature, 2000 

as one of the first examples of using quantitative insight in the engineering of a bistable, transcription-based circuit, this paper helped lay the foundation for further work on synthetic genetic networks. in addition to discussing specifics about the paper’s content, we also used it as an introduction to some of the basic techniques, experimental approaches, and mathematics that are fundamental in the construction of synthetic circuits.

February 9th 2010
Our first meeting will be at 6:30 pm in BioLabs room 1058 (16 Divinity Ave, Cambridge MA). We will be discussing the Nature Editorial |"Meanings of 'Life'". Join us for pizza and exciting discussion about the definition of synthetic biology and how it can affect our definitions of life.