IGEM team meeting notes 8/11/14

TODO 8/11/14:

   Johan and Cral will finalize DNA sequences, and submit - or send to Craig for submission
   Ryan filming the Vegan Galactase response Video
   Rebecca and Marc working on greenhouse gas calculations and cost calculation  
   Advait working/filming the cheese-migrane question. 

Agenda: 08/11/14 Call-in info: https://zoom.us/j/820128495 Or, go to https://zoom.us/join and enter meeting ID: 820 128 495

I. Intro/Go around (5 min - start on time!) Meeting Attendees: Zoom: Advait, Lou Prado,Ahnon Omni: Patrik, Marc, Rachel, Carl, Ryan, Stan, Rebecca

II. Report back to-dos from last meeting (10 min) 1) Ordering & delivery update: Teknova reagents? IDT DNA synthesis need to know if Craig has ordered yet. hKcasein plasmid sequencing? (Rachel?) sequencing is DONE by Sequetech for three replicates of human kappa casein in pd1212-FAKS - fwd and rev. Everything looks OK. Salmon sperm DNA: Patrik will send CCL EIN # 2) Logistics Are we ready for RVC to get a bank account? Need bylaws (Marc?)

III. Topics to discuss 1) Go over codon optimization steps? 2) Experiment planning: Anything planned for BioCurious this week? Grand cloning experiments Yeast work! Where, when, who? (Wes & David leading) potential method for yeast transformation by making yeast chemically competent: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~gietz/method.html 3) iGEM Team Rosters & Project Descriptions due 4) UCSC meetup: what's needed? who is going? http://2014.igem.org/Meetups/August_UCSC See google form (link in google group" for for who is going - also, Advait is creating a page on wiki for the igem project description, and someone needs to write up/present an abstract for the UCSC meetup 5) outstanding Ask a Biohacker videos: Do we need to post these on realvegancheese.org to call them "fulfilled"? Robots vs dinosaurs - Maria & Gaby? When? Tyramine and cheese headaches - Advait Yeast vs cow CO2 calculations (hard! but looks OK) - Marc + Rebecca Cheese causing cancer Where to find vegan galactose? (follow-up on question in Comments section) Do you think you will be able to (eventually) sell this cheaper than cow cheese? - Marc was going to tackle. + Rebecca

Galactose answer: (to be recorded by Ryan)

"I've already asked my question ('where does the lactose come from') via indigogo comment and you answered it promptly (you said you are not going to use lactose but rather galactose, glucose or other sugars).

if i may be allowed to extend my question and you are going to usegalactose i would be interested where it is precisely obtained from, as i found it hard to find reasonably priced vegan galactose for my own kefir experiments."

Lactose is a disaccharide of galactose and glucose, so just replacing the lactose with galactose and glucose is an obvious starting point. But you're right, most commercial galactose is likely made from lactose, since that's such an easily available source. It is far too early to tell whether galactose will be the best solution to replace lactose - there's plenty of other sugars to try as well. Galactose is also a component of hemicellulose in wood. Xylose is already produced commercially from wood pulp, so it may be possible to find a wood-based galactose source as well with some research. As an out-of-the-box alternative, it may also be possible to produce galactose from agarose, which is the gel that we use to grow bacteria on in Petri dishes. Agarose is a polymer of galactose and anhydro-galactopyranose. So enzymatically degrading agarose with the enzyme agarase might provide an interesting lactose replacement to grow lactic acid bacteria. Just a crazy idea, but worth checking...

Response to Tyramine and Cheese Headaches Question (Answered by Advait):

We're obviously not doctors, but a migraine doesn't sound like the typical symptoms associated with cow's milk protein allergies. However, headaches from eating cheese have been associated with tyramine and other biogenic amines. These biogenic amines are produced during the aging process of cheese, as specific bacteria or molds break down the proteins in milk to create the sharp taste of an aged gouda, or the runnyness of Brie. Some people may have problems with tyramine and the other biogenic amines that are created as the milk proteins are broken down. But this has much more to do with the type of cheese, and its specific aging process, than with the source of the cheese proteins. Your best bet may be to avoid hard aged cheeses altogether - vegan or otherwise. The role of tyramine as a trigger of headaches is controversial; but, as far as we know, fresh, non-aged cheese should cause less problems with tyramine. Perhaps another biohacking project would be to create a bacteria that breaks down milk proteins without producing tyramine!

I have a preliminary recording of the voiceover: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1kDPp3bIGgB -Advait (even though the text color is different)

Response to question on equivalences:

article on greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted in the production of various foods (data comes from Sweden) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901104000991 for production of Swedish rapeseed oil (common cooking oil): 3.53 Co2 equivalents (kg/kg food)

Article on energy needed to produce different food products (data from Europe) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800902002616

Milk requires 5.9 MJ energy input/kg Rapeseed oil: 15 MJ/ kg