IGEM:MIT/2005/Day 1 Discussion

• What not to do? Complicated or feasible? Taking something to completion seems important.
• Last year's teams spent half the summer just playing around. Would rather not do that. Deadlines. Let's get this working. Intermediate steps.
• Inevitable that, since we're doing something that's never been done before, that we'll have to experiment blindly.
• If components exist that are known to work... let's use those...
• Finding Nemo thing. Awesome (potentially complicated).
• Will would like to explore the structural capabilities of E.coli. Can we construct a clot of cells that is a "shape."
• Propogate a signal in space, as opposed to moving the cells.
• Do we want to make something that's snazzy or useful (these aren't
  • Eat plaque (could start with simpler system. decouple the problem).
  • Bacteria that can detect levels of glucose, and then produce insulin.
  • Re-writing yeast chromosome
• Would like to work in yeast, what can you do in yeast.
• Degrading whatever we don't want...
  • Bioremediation (eat oil)
• Battery. Photosynthesis -> Energy
  • Current Solar Cells fabrication is environmentally damaging.
  • Living solar cell could have a lot of good applications.
• Chemical -> Electricity Converter
• Light driven water purification (use light to make ATP, use ATP to power segreation of ion and other pollutants in water
• Dewatering of maple syrup?
• Question. How to connect ATP production to some effector.
• Vitamin A expression in rice. What about mulit-vitamin rice
• Etch-a-Sketch, graphing calculator (slit, metrin, robo system from nervous system development).
• Chemical signaling between two mamallian cells. E.g., how does a cell know to stop growing?
• Study aging. When and how do cells talk to each other, what do they say?