Planning! We spent a long time umming and ahhing about potential projects. We only decided to put all our efforts into one just a week before we were due to start in the lab at the beginning of July!

Week 1: 3rd July

Discussing options for CRISPRi and transposons to give assortment of levels for products. We spent a lot of time in meetings and planning to make sure that we were sure about our project. We went bowling as a team this week and discovered that Natalia is an incredibly precise bowler... hopefully her precision transfers to her pipetting skills - all will be revealed later.

Week 2: 10th July

This week we really got our heads down and the biochemists planned our constructs and designed primers. In the meantime the rest of the team worked on outreach (i.e. sending hundreds of e-mails!). Vikram, the computer scientist, worked on lots of complex computer stuff and worked endlessly on our game, a Portal mod. Jake made us a new logo and designed a front page for our wiki which looks super professional now.

Week 3: 17th July

Monday - Primers and enzymes were ordered for one of our two constructs today so we started on the InterLab study until they arrive! We transformed the controls and devices into DH5a competent cells that were provided for us. We set up overnight cultures of TOP10 cells for making electrocompetent cells, and we also made O/N cultures of E.coli carrying the backbone we need for our pReporter which was donated by a lab member. This is called pSTLS. Vikram released a teaser trailer for the game we have made (INSERT LINK HERE). Vik's computer then died.
Tuesday - Vik's computer is alive again. Unfortunately our transformations only gave very small colonies on some plates, and none on others. We re-streaked those colonies that we did have. We extracted plasmid DNA from the O/N cultures of pSTLS and others for the lab to get some practice. We learnt to use the NanoDrop to quantify DNA. Outside of the lab, Georgette was busy creating our very first vlog which will be shared on the social media pages. Vik is looking at building hardware. Today we also skyped Edinburgh UG team to discuss possible collaborations
Wednesday -
Thursday - Today we learnt to electroporate DH5a and TOP10 cells. We transformed them with either a plasmid containing dCas9 or our low copy backbone, pSTLS. We also set up overnight cultures for the InterLab Study.
Friday - Laser quest!

Team:UNOTT/Notebook

UNOTT

Notebook

March-July 2017

Week 1: 3rd July

Week 2: 10th July

Week 3: 17th July

Week 4: 24th July

Week 5: 31st July

Week 6: 7th August

Week 7: 14th August

Week 8: 21st August

Week 9: 28th August

Week 10: 4th September

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