IGEM team meeting notes 3/24/14

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iGEM Planning Meeting Notes

Funding

  • General info: Funding + Details
    • Andrew Hessel’s page on funding
  • Corporate sponsorship
    • Would you guys be okay with wearing sponsorship T-shirts or something on the desk? - yes...ish...maybe
    • Because that’s the only thing we can really offer in return (I think), otherwise it’s just give us money please lol
    • I think we have to be really careful who we team with
    • yeah, i think your right. We are such a new group; don’t want to set people’s ideas up front. Do other people do that at the jamboree? I think they generally get funding from the school, the professors/postdocs that work with the undergrads.
    • Then I really don’t want to give the impression that DIYbio is corporate sponsored.
    • They should give to us bc we are where they will get their employees and where their current employees can stay sharp.
      • They can get employees from the other people they don’t give money to. I’m sure they offer positions to anyone who does a good job.
    • We have enough social cache
    • Lets’ discuss this in the meeting, it’s easier and we can get everyone’s input. Where’s the google hangouts btw?
    • We’re thinking online shoutout instead. As a part of the required wiki.
    • Ahnon: The optics of looking like a nascar team for the first time a DIYbio group enters, esp from SF/EB … it would be icky. lol, probably not as bad as you’d imagine if it looked good. but if you guys are against it that’s fine by me =)
    • I think online shoutouts are sufficient. If we can’t get funding, then we can reconsider. Sure, but yeah no google hangouts? No google hangout bc too long to set up. We’ll be done by the time it gets going. I’ll do something better for next time.
    • Ahnon: Jing we nominate you as the head of our fundraising team. Jing: Lol, Thanks, that can out of the blue.
    • Jing: Ok. lol. So here’s the deal, I can definitely whip together a crowdfunding option for the long term. Just not fast enough for the registration.Ahnon: I’m happy to help! I think we can get reg together. We’ll just need to pay people back with the $ we raise. Jing: Okay, great. Because using my Techshop membership, i can make a bunch of nifty gifts.Ahnon: Yay!3/24/14
    • Patrik: we need 2 fundraising efforts - one for the registration amount, one for the longer-term funding. Making sure that we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot by closing door on longer-term funding.
    • Jing: I’ll try to do my best lol. I’ll start contacting corporations for sponsorships (to get a feel for what people think) and if possible it’d be nice to know what CCL connections we have as well.
    • Marc’s response on corporate sponsorship:
      • They can get their logo on our sponsors web page.
      • They can even get their logo on a sponsors plaque in our physical space.
      • They can have their logo on whichever physical equipment they sponsor.
      • Other than that we will not do any advertising for them and they do not get to use our likeness or material in their advertising other than to state that they sponsored us and to use the CCL logo when they state that they sponsored us. If this is a problem, e.g. they want to use photos of members or experiments in their advertising, we'll have to approve it on a case by case basis.
      • We do not allow recurring sponsorships, since that gives them power over us by threatening to pull the plug.
      • They get no say in how we use the money (other than perhaps"this has to be used for this specific project you applied for", or "this money cannot be used for recurring costs like rent").

We'll accept having to report back with documentation about how the money was spent.

Results from Surveymonkey

On the “Do you know anyone who might be willing to donate” question:

  • Jeff Johnson: I could probably get reagents.
  • Antony Evans: Yes
  • Sunny Allen: yes, I might be able to. how much is needed?
  • Matt Harbowy: yes
  • William Heath: I would be willing to donate some funding
  • Eric Poliner: I can probably send bio materials, such as plasmids.
  • Jing Luo: working on it…


Grants

Facility

    • iGEM requires that we show we have a facility that works for our proposed BSL By ~ Aug. 30 w/ safety info
    • Mobile lab: Ethan knows of ambulance for sale - fully powered inside, medical clean etc.- $1800
    • Backroom lab would work for BSL1 only

New software idea from Ethan

  • Transgrams app - like tangrams - for transgenics (synth bio) education
    • 7 from original square is the chassis
    • total of 10 shapes
    • Encode actual organism
    • Animation for 300mer
    • Will actually synth DNA for a subset

Teams

  • Yeast: Ashley, Ahnon
  • Plant: Ethan, Patrik
  • Ethan has worked in a phytochrome lab; more recently worked on medicinal mushrooms.

Questons for today

  • What day/time/location should we have our regular meetings from now on?
  • Who here has experience in yeast genetic engineering? Who has experience with plants, or can help figure research genetic targets in plants?
    • Yeast: Craig, (Marc has a tiny amount of experience in S. cerevisiae)

Plants: Ashley has a bit of experience; Ethan has some esp. w/ phytochrome (worked on iGEM project that had yeast communicating with plants);

    • Plants: Craig, Ethan (phyochrome biochem and Agro-based Arabidopsis transformations)

Help: Jing (molecular biology background)

    • Craig does. Is he in this meeting?
      • “I have experience in Yeast (K. lactis and S. cerevisae) and some plant genetics (being a former Monsanto employee and all).” -- Craig
    • Any volunteers for looking into team registration specifics, especially with regards to having a BSL-1 facility available to do the work? Is that a requirement for registration, or a requirement we need to meet at the Jamboree in September?

Needed to fill out BSL-1 form some time in August last year

    • Where should we do the actual lab work, for now? Ahnon's back room? Berkeley BioLabs? BioCurious? Other possible locations?
    • We'll need to pick one specific organization to register as. Do we register under CCL or BioCurious? Does it matter? I believe this is purely for the paperwork; we should still be able to name our team whatever we want.
    • How much of the $3500 registration fee can we scrape together by the end of the month?
      • We have $600 in donations now - let’s collect as much as we can from ourselves, and find donations for the rest

Ethan mentions that you can do Agro leaf dip with mushrooms - Ascomycetes grow v fast. Worried about time delays involved in plant work.

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