IGEM team meeting notes 8/18/14

Agenda 8/18/2014

Present: Stan, Ashley, Rebecca, Rachel, Carl, Craig, Patrik, Advait, Drew

https://wiki.realvegancheese.org/index.php/Protease_problems There are Kex2 protease sites inside our proteins; change a few amino acids to avoid them Order *both* versions; native + Kex2 mutated Fam20C is 2030 nucleotides; can't order gBlocks >2000bp; will cleave off

RVC Board of directors: Marc, Craig, Ashley, Rachel, Ryan, Advait Checking account is set up!

UCSC update from Carl & Advait: according to Kim de Mora from iGEM, Advait did a great job! Advait contacted iGEM HQ, and we are featured on iGEM's community page.

UCSC Meeting:

   Looked at UC poster symposium, had lunch, and then went into presentations. A scientist form NASA presented the keynote address, and then teams presented their projects.
   I presented our project by myself, and the audience really liked it! :) Then after that we had a few presentations from researchers on ethical issues and a panel on ethical issues. After that, we had a networking session, pizza, and bonfire on the beach.

Alternative Proteins, Alternative Futures: Panel & Networking https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alternative-proteins-alternative-futures-panel-networking-tickets-12573271995

LiAc still needs to be ordered - asap Craig likes Quartzy as ordering system - ask Ashley for access

SDS-PAGE reagents need to be ordered (LifeTech)

UCSC Speech: Powerpoint Presentation:

Advait: We, the Real Vegan Cheese team have emerged from the San Francisco Bay Area to create the world’s first real vegan cheese.

Advait: Our team is a collaborative effort between Oakland-based Counter Culture Labs and South Bay–centered BioCurious.

Advait: Our team consists of newbies and experts; from programmers, chemists, medical immunologists, and bioinformaticians, to students and even a high schooler.

Advait: We are attempting to make the world’s first real vegan cheese by engineering normal baker's yeast (S. cerevisiae) to express milk protein (casein), purifying the protein, creating a milk-substitute by blending in vegan replacements for lactose and milk fat, and finally turning the resulting milk-substitute into semi-hard cheese like gouda using the regular cheese-making process.

Advait: We are also currently running an indiegogo campaign (explain if they don’t know what it is), and we have collected over $24,000 dollars for our cause. We have been featured in over 86 blog posts and articles.

Advait: Our motivations/missions include the following: (read off the powerpoint)

Advait: We have faced numerous challenges along the way, which include:

               -coordinating the effort of over 30 team members
               -creating and running a successful indiegogo campaign
               -Explaining the actual process (how we will manage to make cheese from an animal DNA 

sequence) to the general public -Confronting the fears of the mis-informed (there will be no GMO material left in the final cheese) and explaining to them how this will not cause problems

Advait:

               This is our first milestone. Our other milestones can be found at https://pad.riseup.net/p/vegancheesemilestones

Advait:

               We have been featured in over 86 blog posts and articles. You can find more information on the following websites: (read off of powerpoint). Thanks for watching!!!