Berkeley Engineering Blogs

Every year, the iGEM barbecue is great opportunity to mingle with folks from other schools. This year’s was close to home, a picnic area up in Tilden Park. We met the teams from Stanford, UCSF, and JBEI’s high school biotech group, for an afternoon of food and fun. During lunch, we casually inquired the other teams about their projects, trying not to seem like spies. Afterwords, there was a large soccer match. Berkeley wet lab and dry lab split up on opposite teams. When the wet lab scored, Patrick cheered, “We just instantiated a new scoring object!” Doug resigned to being player-coach goalkeeper after his back injuries resurfaced. Eventually, our lack of coordination became too much to stomach, and he went out and single-handedly scored for us. In addition to soccer, there were kites being flown, volleyball being played, and frisbees being thrown. The Stanford folks got restless, and started climbing trees. Overall, the barbecue was enjoyable, despite the overcast day. I still somehow managed to get sunburned.

Instead of the normal grind and tedious pipetting that normally fills our days, the comp team and the wet team got together on Monday for a little bowling action. The outing was an unambiguous success!

Around noon we all met at the mining circle to discuss how we were going to fit 18 people into 3 cars… Somehow we all managed to end up at the Ranch 99 plaza at about the same time. There was a period of intense indecision about where we would eat, but finally Bing made an executive decision: Korean Food!

The poor waitress looked a little horrified when 18 hungry iGemmers walked through the doors. Someone mumbled “Table for 18 please,” and the waitress hurried away to play tetris with several tables in the corner. A short time later, we were all seated in relatively close proximity, laughing and discussing non-biological subjects.

I thought the food was outstanding. But then again, I’m not really picky and you would be hard pressed to find food I don’t like.

Bing led the caravan to Albany Bowl and we all stood in line to be outfitted in our super stylish bowling shoes. I had a particularly fly pair of neon kicks. The management dusted off the old disco vinyls and turned on the laser lights and smoke machines.

Patrick and I were desperately pursuing a turkey (three strikes in a row). After a single strike we would cry “33% turkey!! 33% turkey!!” Even though we got dangerously close to a whole turkey, with a whopping “66% turkey,” several times, neither of us were able to catch the elusive gobbler.

Reluctantly, we exchanged our chic footwear at the counter and began the journey back to campus to continue the grueling pipetting regiments.

Finally all of us would like to thank iGEM for sponsoring this social event. It was a blast and a welcome break from the lab =]

Well who wouldn’t?!?

You may think that if you don’t have access to a University Laboratory and fancy, enigmatic equipment (not to mention expen$ive), then practicing synthetic biology is out of reach.

Well, I found a website dedicated to
“makeing biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety.” DIYbio.org is a really interesting site with blog entries and information on local events and conferences. While clicking around the site I found an interesting entry concerning amateur participation in the iGEM 2009 competition. It seems that amateur participation won’t be allowed this year due to safety and bureaucratic concerns…

So, I’d like to pose this question to the other iGEMers: What would you imagine a safety framework for amateur of DIYbio might look like? How would it be enforced?

It’s 3:15 pm Eastern time, and our presentation is scheduled to start in 45 minutes.  We have spent the day watching other presentations and getting a feel for what other teams have been doing.  Presenting late in the day is a little nerve-wracking.  

I have also been interviewing people about their opinions on synthetic biology, its attachment to iGEM, and friction between the open source philosophies and the realities of the technicalities of doing the research and the needs of the researchers for characterized systems, parts, and devices.

Here is a pictoral depiction of our day so far:

Beautiful Stada Center!!

Searching, searching for presentations.

Last minute practice, this time with hard hats.

JAMBOREE DAY ONE!

Free coffee delivered, opening remarks spoken, and first teams speaking–the iGEM competition is off to its start.  The rooms for the teams to present are too small for the crowds who want to see them, so there are many overflow areas for others to see them–although unfortunately there are usually seven teams speaking at once, so we’ll have to wait to watch the filmed footage (posted on youtube?) to see everyone who is presenting here today.

Here’s a little distraction, though, in the form of Clonebots viral marketing…

Jamboree–Day Zero.

Tomorrow’s the big day, and today has been spent re-calibrating and going over the presentation and Q&A session that we’ll have at 4:00 tomorrow afternoon.  

We were schooled on proper body language and comportment rules for the presentation.  

Molly’s cutting up some Clonebots stickers for attachment to our construction hats and other important sticker-applied areas.

Clonebots:  a new example of viral marketing.

Terry teaches us the importance of thinking like Batman while presenting to a room of scientists.

…while Bing, Madhvi, Christie, and I make last minute changes on our powerpoint presentation. Â