Team:Lubbock TTU/Attributions
Attributions
The Lubbock TTU iGEM team was responsible for all aspects of the project, from brainstorming, literature review, outreach, project design and lab workflow, to human practice, outreach, and wiki development. However, this would not have been possible without the guidance of our mentors and advisors. We are extremely grateful for their active involvement and expertise throughout this competition. The following attributions explain in more detail team member, advisor, and mentor involvement.
Team Members
Annie Woh
Annie led the development of our Human Practices. She found the chitin oligosaccharide N-acetylglucosamine, that would be used in the lab, to detect the presence of chitin. Annie was also in charge of updating the notebook and making sure everyone knew what the weekly meeting would take place. Additionally, she made the team schedule that would notify members of general meetings, absences, and lab hours.
Christian Fell
Christain contributed to the brainstorming process by looking into chitin as a signaling molecule to indicate chytrid presence. He assisted in literature review on the Vibrio Cholera chitin-sensing one-component system from which our system is based on. Later on, he assisted Paula with Wiki content development to edit the finalized information gathered by the rest of the team.
Lauren Escobedo
Being aware of the core values of iGEM and Kill switch relevance, she helped develop our ChiSPY project. She also determined the sfGFP part for the project and the DNA sequence to order. Lauren has contributed to the education & communication criteria. She has focused on creating an educational gene circuit game to inform students about the great aspects of synthetic biology. Alongside all of this, she also organized STEM workshop events and research presentations to share about our ChiSPY project to faculty and students. Lauren has contributed countless hours and brainpower to the project and we appreciate all that she has done for the team.
Manini Penikalapati
She led the project modeling of ChiSPY. She also contributed to the brainstorming process by performing literature review on the application of CRISPR-dCas9 for an eDNA-based biosensor in addition to developing potential bioaugmentation project ideas. She also helped design the series of 8 constructs that need to be made to test the expression of ChiSPY in E. coli. She was also solely in charge of the project modeling for our predicted results; meeting with experts on campus and designing our plate reader experiments for when our biosensor was developed. Lastly, Manini helped with writing grants and managing expenses alongside the treasurer.
Paula Garcia
She was elected as this year’s Wet Lab Manager. This came with keeping the lab notebook organized, monitoring everyone’s progress in their respective roles in the lab, as well as supervising and green lighting experiments team members would conduct in the lab. She was also solely responsible for the development of the Wiki page. Additionally, she conducted extensive literature review in the ChiS one component system. Paula also helped in developing the series of 8 constructs to test the expression of ChiSPY in E. Coli with Manini, and contributed to most trouble shooting plans when errors arose.
Rigoberto Hernandez
For the wiki, he worked on designing the concepts and visual aspects of the page with Paula Garcia. He also led the promotional video and different outreach projects made by other iGEM teams such as the “BioDoddle Book” which is a coloring book with different drawings that explain basic scientific concepts. He helped the team connect with Dr. Maria Basanta, a professor that works in the field of ecology and genetics at the Autonomous National University of Mexico who gave us a global perspective of the applied techniques that our project can have when, we were still in the brainstorming phase.
Sylvia Hernandez
Sylvia helped handle and assist the collaborations made with fellow iGEM teams. During the summer alongside Manini, worked on the team’s fundraising and handled the team’s funds to order parts and equipment. Sylvia assisted the team by connecting with Dr. Ankur Dalia, Dr. David Rodriguez, Joseph Heppert, and Kent Redford. She assisted with literature reviews, was the point of contact for collaborators, and university and outside funding
Advisors and Mentors
Dr. Aliza Wong
She is Associate Dean of the Texas Tech Honors College. With the help of her and the Honors College, the Lubbock_TTU team was able to acquire a portion of our total funding for research and travel. Without her help, our research would have been very difficult to accomplish and we would have had to allot more time to acquire travel funding.
Dr. Andrew Loudon
He helped the team brainstorm bioaugmentation ideas to inhibit Bd growth. One of the ideas he helped the team come up with is engineering the bacteria to increase the production of mucin or probiotics.
Dr. Angela Peace
She played an instrumental role in helping the team understand how to model their system mathematically, including helping them navigate software like MatLab and Simbiology. She provided a template code for Matlab and reviewed the team’s differential equations to help them troubleshoot issues.
Dr. Ankur Dalia
He is the lead investigator in the Vibrio cholerae sensor kinase project that was vital to our understanding of the chitin detection system we implemented in our project. He provided his ChiS plasmid so that we could begin working on our gene constructs when our ChiS fragment was waiting to be shipped. As one of the authors to work on “The nucleoid occlusion protein SlmA is a direct transcriptional activator of chitobiose utilization in Vibrio cholerae ” paper, Dr. Dalia was able to guide Sylvia and Christain in the beginning of their Pchb Engineering project by letting them know if certain options for Pchb were viable or not. He also provided them with the whole Pchb DNA sequence for them to make edits on and begin on their constructs.
Brandon Palomo
He is our team’s primary mentor. As a longtime member in the iGEM community, and the founder of the Lubbock TTU iGEM team, he was a valuable resource for the team when helping us better understand the principles of the competition and what it really means to do research. Additionally, he also taught the team many skills including, how to find relevant literature effectively, what to consider when troubleshooting, and all lab techniques necessary to conduct our research in this project thanks to his self-made “Hell Week” program. . . While teaching us lab techniques, he also acted as our liaison for the Center of Biotechnology and Genomics, which led to us being granted access to work alongside the students and staff there. Brandon contributed countless hours helping us through the brainstorming process and was by our side during our many late night brainstorming sessions. He dedicated his free time to critiquing everyone’s progress weekly through in-person presentation style meetings where the team presented updates and developments through a powerpoint to develop our presentation and public speaking skills. He also assisted with all grant writing processes by teaching us his grant writing skills and experiences. With his in-depth knowledge of iGEM, he showed us how to work and communicate in a professional environment to better organize the team through this long term commitment and experience. Without his countless contributions and dedication to Lubbock TTU’s iGEM team, the growth of this organization at Texas Tech and its many accomplishments since its inception would not have been possible.
Dr. Catherine Wakeman
Dr. Wakeman allowed the team to use her plate reader to gather fluorescence data. She also lent the team her expertise when planning the well plate designs and operating the plate reader.
Dr. David Rodriguez
He provided the team with insight as a field ecologist that shifted the focus of our project. Since then, he has advised the team through various breakthroughs. With his continued guidance, the team decided to focus the project on being a biosensor that detects chitin. His work and experience as a field ecologist proved to be an incredible asset to the team. He even generously offered us the use of his lab and Bd samples.
Jason Spinks
He is the owner of Mad Hatters Game Store in Lubbock, TX. He gave Lauren helpful information about how to make a card game. He helped Lauren create the board game by providing games for her to reference. He also allowed the team to come into his store and play our game to his customers. He has introduced the team to specific software that was helpful when developing the board or card game.
Joseph Heppert
He is the Vice President of the Office of Research and Innovation. With the help of him and his office, the Lubbock_TTU iGEM team was able to acquire a significant portion of our funding for lab materials and travel to the iGEM Meet Up in Treasure Island, Florida.
Julie Isom
She is an enthusiastic supporter of the Lubbock_TTU iGEM team as the advisor for the student organization on campus and Associate Program Director of CISER (Center for the Integration of STEM Education & Research). She provided financial support, mental relief, and connected us with a multitude of people who helped us grow as a team.
Dr. Khalid Alam
He helped us brainstorm other uses for our biosensor. He gave us materials and other contacts that helped us develop ideas on where we could apply our biosensor.
Levi Johnson
He is the Director of the Center for Transformative Undergraduate Experiences (TRUE). With the help of him and the program, the Lubbock_TTU team was able to acquire a portion of our funding for research and travel. Without his help, our research would have been more difficult to accomplish and we would have had to seek more resources to obtain travel funding.
Dr. Maria Basanta
She focuses on the ecology of amphibian diseases and amphibian conservation at La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She made us aware of a closely related Bd chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans ( Bsal ) that was recently discovered in 2013. She also talked to us about the detection equipment used in her lab, workflow associated with the equipment available, and the price of each piece of equipment. Getting insight about the equipment, usage, and cost of them got the team interested in investigating current detection methods and exploring where synthetic biology could be implemented.
Dr. Matthew Barnes
He took us out on the field along with two of his graduate students. He allowed us to go into the water after we got properly dressed. We were also given the chance to swab the frogs under his and his graduate students' close supervision.
Dr. Michael Latham
He has helped the team model ChiSPY by answering questions regarding experimentally determining parameters versus estimating them based on literature. He also helped the team brainstorm ideas on how to experimentally determine the concentration of chitin per zoosporangia.
Dr. Michael San Francisco
He is our primary investigator and met with the team on a weekly basis during the summer to guide the team through various phases of the project. With his extensive knowledge of Bd, he directed us towards different reference materials such as research articles and experts. This helped us choose our biomarker and led us to the paper that discovered the one-component system from V. cholera that we utilized in our biosensor.
Dr. Mohamed Fokar
He is a Research Associate Professor for the Center of Biotechnology and Genomics. He is also in charge of the Experimental Sciences Building where our lab is located. Dr. Fokar has provided us with numerous lab equipment such as a microcentrifuge, falcon tubes, and much more. The advice and guidance on how to use special equipment was extremely helpful for our project. He also has helped us in using GeneWiz to get our parts sequenced when needed. Our lab work would not have been as smooth without his assistance.
Sadie Roth
Sadie is one of Dr. Barnes’ graduate students and they took us out on the field so we could perform our modified swabbing protocol. She helped us catch frogs and gave us advice about how to swab them.
Seth Sutor
He is a graduate student studying under Dr. Barnes and they took us out on the field so we could perform our modified swabbing protocol. He also showed us how to catch frogs and keep them so they wouldn’t escape. He also showed us how to swab frogs