Team:Worldshaper-Shanghai/Notebook
Notebook
February
·Work out a 2020 iGEM work schedule
·Professional theory learning
·Experimental skills training
A 2020 iGEM work schedule was made for both dry team and wet team by team consultants. After that, all team members started online professional theory learning and virtual experimental skills training.
March
·Project brainstorming
All team members together with our team consultants brainstormed for our team project. After thorough research considering project utility, research difficulty, and past experiences, Worldshaper-Shanghai 2020 decided to perform work related to prostate cancer and forged a primitive work plan for the year.
April
·iGEM competition rules learning
·Professional theory learning
·Brainstorming and discussion
Team members learned iGEM competition rules from team consultants. Getting to know the rules, the team had several online meetings to discuss and brainstorm the final target and needed materials. At the same time, the online professional theory of synthetic biology learning was continued.
May
·Project final determination
·Background research
The team further consolidated the project plan, focusing now on the diagnosis of prostate cancer, and formed a basic plan for wet teamwork. The group started more specific background research and opened up several social media accounts in order to increase visibility. Meanwhile, members continued the study of general professional theories of biology.
June
Wet team：
·Background manuscript
·Safety form
Dry team ：
·Team arrangement
·Wiki framework
·Questionnaire
·Public activities plan
·Expert interview plan
·Self-media update
·Team apparel/ Team flag
Members were divided into wet team and dry team. Everyone was arranged by different jobs.
After some researches, a background manuscript about prostate cancer and its diagnosis was written. Also, the team finished safety form of the experimental part.
For wet teams, the Wiki framework is started to be built. Through the communications with experts, several plans for offline public activities and expert interview for prostate diagnosis were made. We updated our first self-media as well as the public questionnaire. Besides, art groups of the team designed team apparel and team flag.
July
Due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, our offline work was compressed in about a 3-week period (from 7/27 to 8/15) and focused on experiments. The first week was spent familiarizing with lab procedures and choosing primers; the second week was spent on extracting RNA from artificial urine, processing it, and performing PCRs; and the third week was spent performing in vitro transcription/translation, and testing fluorescence proteins.
Wet team：
·Lab procedures coaching
·RNA extraction and primers choosing
Dry team：
·Self-media update
·Questionnaire collection
On the first two days, the group watched professionals perform some of the basic experimental procedures, namely the use of pipettes, centrifugation, homogenization, PCR, and RNA extraction from cells. A plan on experiment proceedings was also formed. For the next three days, the group extracted the genome of prostate cancer cells and performed PCR using 6 pairs of primers to test for the specificity of the primers.
On the side of the dry team, we continued producing articles for our WeChat account and distributed relevant questionnaires in order to demonstrate the social need for our project.
August
Wet team：
·Experiment
·Enrich RNA from samples
·RT
·PCR
·Toehold Switch
·Experimental record
·Analysis and arrangement of experimental results
·Applied design
Dry team：
·Education
·Self-media update
·2020 technology exhibition in Zhejiang
·Collaboration
·With Dingshi
·Online meet up
·Expert interview
·Manuscript collection of human practice
For dry teams, early in August, we had a collaboration with another team called Dingshi. Through the collaboration, a game about toehold switch was created. Meanwhile, we interviewed more experts to gain further suggestions. At the end of August, members and team consultants attended the 2020 technology exhibition in Zhejiang of China to promote our project. After that, human practice manuscript was formed and collected.
On the wet team side, the lab part was continued and recorded until August 13th.
August 3rd, part of members enriched RNA from 5 ml artificial urine samples under the guidance of the professor.
August 4th, we practiced enriched RNA from samples in the morning, finished RT and PCR of yesterday, and transfer the competent cell with the plasmid in the afternoon.
August 5th, we performed PCRs of yesterday. August 6th, we learned and done the plasmid extraction of Escherichia coli under guiding.
August 7th to August 10th, in order to collect more data, we kept repeating enriching RNA from samples, doing RT, and running PCRs.
August 11th, we did transcription and translation with toehold switch and tested cherry, the fluorescence proteins we chose. McSherry works well and shows color on our samples.
August 12th and 13th, we repeated the progress of plasmid extraction of E.coli and stored for tomorrow.
August 14th, the last day in our lab, we did transcription and translation with toehold switch again and double test with mcherry. The result shows color well. At last, we made an analysis of experimental results and checked the whole progress with professors.
After finishing the lab part, our applied design was started to be written.
September and October
-Wiki manuscript
·Modeling
·Applied design
·Promotion video
·Prepare for presentation
·Presentation video
·Poster
·Wiki web page optimization
·Model
·Final judging form
·Parts registry
With wet team offline work closed, the group is now focusing on writing necessary documents (description, project design, protocols, experiment results analysis, future aspiration, Part registration, applied design, science communication, human practice, and safety), a compilation of past writings, filming a promotion video, and filming the final presentation video. We plan to produce the first version of the documents in early September and mid-September, depending on the work needed and the nature of the documents. The final version of most of the documents is planned to be finished in late September. We spent the whole October completing and checking all deliverables for Final Visual Gaint Jamboree, such as wiki optimization, making presentation video and poster.
November
The team gets ready for the online final presentation.
Worldshaper-Shanghai 2020
New non-invasive technique for early stage prostate cancer diagnosis