November 26, 2023: First iGEM meeting of this season! Past UW iGEM members talked about the expectation of this season and started to develop project ideas.
December
Week 1
During week 1 members continued to work on detailing their individual project ideas and created proposals for them.
Week 2-3
After two weeks of background research the five topics that were developed into a proposal are continuing last year’s project, using kelp to combat ocean acidification, pharmacogenetics, enzymatic blood type conversion, and gut microbiome metabolite.
December 20, 2023: Team members presented their ideas and a vote was casted. The project idea that received the highest amount of votes is pharmacogenetics, in which we could increase expression of certain genes to increase or decrease an individual’s ability to metabolize medicines.
Week 4
Started the onboarding process for the new team members.
January
Week 4
January 28, 2024: First official meeting with the new iGEM team members this year! Introduced the basics of iGEM to the new members.
Project ideas were introduced to the new members, subteams continued background research to refine the project idea.
February
Week 1
Based on our initial project idea of pharmacogenetics we started discussing the details of the project that we would like to do this year.
Started background research regarding the type of cancers that is more likely to be affected by pharmacogenetics.
Week 2
Discovered that there might be novelty issues in our current ideas.
Continued literature review in regards to the types of cancer that we looked into.
Week 3 to 4
Individual members were assigned different topics they were interested in and continued literature review.
March
Week 1
March 3, 2024: Abacavir, Irinotecan, CYP3A, and OCT1 were proposed as the four possible directions for our project idea.
Week 2
Further research was done regarding the UGT1A1 disease by the human practices subteam.
Week 3 to 4
Discovered novelty issues regarding the current proposed ideas, continued literature review and background research.
April
Week 1
Discovered that neutropenia and antibiotics resistance are some of the more pressing issue that cancer patients are facing everyday.
Week 2
Wetlab decided that our project will be on how we will use human albumins to extend the half life of antibiotics that are essential to cancer patients.
Week 3
Wetlab met with their mentor Dr. Jennifer Kong and discussed about the details of our experiments.
Wetlab members started safely trainings and talked about the general timeline.
Week 4
April 28, 2024: Confirmed with the entire subteam that our project idea will be using human serum albumin to extend the half-life of cephalosporins by binding them together.
After confirmation of the project, wetlab started researching about what is an appropriate albumin binding moieties as a base model that we can modify.
May
Week 1
It is decided that we will create an albumin-drug complex through the binding of human serum albumin with a modified ABM, a linker, and a cephalosporin.
Wetlab started researching possible ways to quantify the binding between the ABM and human albumin.
Looked into which type of antibiotics is most relevant for cancer patients.
Week 2
Wetlab looked for a way to quantify peptide binding and a way to quantify free flowing drugs and looked into how to differentiate bound albumin from unbound albumin.
Week 3
Wetlab decided that we will employ a 2-step-verification process. We will first isolate the unbound albumins then find quantification it possibly using liquid photometry or GC-MS.
Week 4
Wetlab started and finished the Safety form required for iGEM registration.
Drylab is analyzing and modifying the ABM to increase its affinity to human serum albumin.
June
Week 1
Written protocols for the expression and purification of our modified ABM protein.
Week 2
Wetlab looked into ways that we can quantify the binding of albumin with ABM and ABM with linker.
Researched more about the properties of cephalosporins and compared the third generation with the fourth generation.
Through interviews with experts, human practices found out that fourth generation cephalosporins is the most common antibiotic used in cancer patients currently.
Week 3
Wetlab looked into ways to synthesize the linker maleimide-PEG-OH and created protocols.
Looked into ways for quantification of the linker possibly through making the linker fluorescent.
Week 4
Contacted professors in the Chemistry department of University of Washington to seek guidance on performing the chemistry to synthesize linkers.
July
Week 1
Wetlab started designing the plasmid necessary for the AMB protein expression.
Week 2
Refined and completed our protocols for protein synthesis and protein purification.
Started the thiol reaction and esterification protocols for linker synthesis.
Contacted staff in the chemistry department to inquire about the use of NMR and GC-MS machines for future quantification processes.
Week 3
Researched about the use of equilibrium dialysis to separate the unbound albumin from the bound albumin.
Developed specific protocols for separation of proteins with similar size using equilibrium dialysis.
Week 4
Received feedback from Fernando Mejia regarding the protocols that wrote, and started refining the protocols according to his advice.
Placed orders for the necessary materials that we need to perform the experiment.
August
Week 1
Contact people in the Biochem core regarding equipment use and training for size exclusion chromatography and HPLC.
Went over the use of Benchling and proper lab notebook recording format.
Week 2 to 4
While waiting for the supplies to arrive, wetlab focused on contacting people to inquire uses and price of specific equipment in the meantime.
September
Week 1 to 3
While waiting for the supplies to arrive, wetlab started researching for opportunities to fundraise for the team.
Week 4
September 27, 2024: The plasmids for our modified ABM protein finally arrived.
September 28, 2024: With the help of Dr. Jennifer Kong, wetlab started the plasmid prep.
September 30, 2024: With the help of Dr. Jennifer Kong, wetlab started protein extraction and performed western blot.
