BOSSLab Meeting
Oct 2, 2011 2 to ~5 PM Eastern
Attending:
Dan
Ian
Lasse
Meghan
Updates:
IPA bottled. Lots of prep work, sterilizing with iodine. Kind of messy. Initially stuck wrong end of siphon in fermentation bucket. Should be ready to drink Oct 23. Monetary contributions should be put in the Sprout donation jar.
Waste from recent projects bleached, pressure sterilized and put in landfill trash. Pressure sterilizer pressure still hard to control with propane burner. Autoclave bags got wet and ruptured - pressure sterilizer bleached and cleaned with Alconex. Rinsed emptied to public sewer.
Electrodeposition equipment brought in by Ian, along with 2-day deposits on 1/4” hardware cloth. Experiments using metal anodes - even surgical steel - resulted in the dissolved anodes. This is common in electroplating, and not surprising (bit did make for some colorful foam). Switched to carbon anode, which does not dissolve. Safety for next run (on power supply, not battery) will include voltage and amperage limits, an enclosed chamber (aquarium) and warning signs. Dan will research user manuals for Sprout’s power supplies and get a 10 to 20 gallon aquarium. Evaporation / loss due to electrolysis may be significant.
Lasse will be leading the webcam project. He is very interested in working with others on it. Plan is to use it to remotely monitor projects. Would be nice to use this to make a time-lapse video of the electrodeposition results. Avery has done this in the past.
Meghan will be leading our next transformation project. She’s interested in other’s ideas on the particulars for what traits to insert. Banana scent gene is available. Some folks at MIT are working on variable fluorescence expression based on electric current. Gabriel found an easy UV fluorescence transformation protocol: http://biotech.biology.arizona.edu/labs/transformation(TG).html
Meghan brought up plastic-digesting organism isolation as an alternative. Avery has some background in this. Charlie can supply protocols. Paul wants to help with this.
Lasse would like to lead an automated incubator, starting with setting back up web logging on our existing incubator. Ian wants to help with this.
Lasse has a contact at Lego that will supply NXT and other parts for any Lego-based equipment we design. Lasse would like assistance designing a compact machine to photograph plates on-demand via Internet services.
Lasse took some photos - we’ll post those once they’re online.
As always, please speak up if you want to work on any of our projects!
