Much of our main project was worked on by Seok
Park and Cassie Garfola . Seok Park used the
Gibson Assembly method to create the genetically engineered machine. The parts consist of the following: A pBBR
backbone, pgaA (Our submitted part for IGEM), Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) Ribosome Binding Site (RBS) GEP,
Terminator, pLacZ, nhaR RBS, nhaR (Our second submitted part for IGEM), and lastly another terminator. This was a
total of 9 total parts that needed to be stitched into a full construct. This led to the use of the Gibson Assembly
method
in order to increase the rate of success of creating our construct.
Cassie Garfola worked to insert the engineered parts of the construct into the provided linearized iGem vector. Through the process of digestion, ligation and transformation she vectorized the team's biologically engineered parts, pgaA and nhaR, into the pSBIC3 vector.
On the Web Site
Heading up the wiki page this year is our Computer Science student, Joe Roehm. He produced the wiki using various sources such as
CSS and Bootstrap. Many of the images are completely free to use, and the others were created by us. Many of the
photos were edited in GIMP, a free image editing software produced by the GNU Project. The website was a continuous
effort this year, and Joe kept himself busy, proving to be a valuable
part of the USNA team. However, Joe could not have been so successful without the help of the rest of the team, since
he stayed mostly out of the lab itself.
We each brought our own particular skillset to the table. It just so happened that I was more familiar
with computers than the rest of the gang, so I decided to head up the web development part, and it was a great time!
Our iGEM team last year had been less experienced with building wiki pages, so this year the team made sure to get an early start to achieve an interactive, easy to navigate, and informational webpage for the competition.
InterLab
The InterLab study was conducted by the joint efforts of Natalia Barrow and
Dwayne Williams. The two first cultured, then innoculated and grew bacteria colonies according to the interlab studies
manual. They then measured various absorbances and flurescences of the bacteria at different times to compare to the results
of other labs in the iGem projects to ensure that any future project results could be replicated in various labs around the
world.
Mentor Work
In The Lab
The scientists at the Naval Research Labs showed us their lab setup, and how to conduct standard lab procedures according to NRL special codes. One of our instructors, Lina Bird had this to say:
It's been an absolute pleasure! It's great to have the opportunity to watch you guys create something.
Our mentors have been a huge help getting our project off the ground, and providing helpful guidance when we need
it! Leonard Tender, or Lenny, has been our guide for mathematical modeling. He spent much of his time with us working with Alex, enabling Alex to create his modeling procedures for our project.
Sarah Glaven is also a pivotal member of our team. She was the backbone of our group. She scheduled all of our events, set goals for each week of research, and helped us with our vision for the project.
