Team:BSC United/Notebook
PROJECT
NOTEBOOK
April
Week1
Apr 1st-7th
Recruit BSC_United members. 14 people from 10 cities worldwide joined the team for the iGEM 2019 competition.
Week2&3
Apr 8th-21st
Brainstorming. Through the discussion, team decided to build an in vitro model as the first step for exploration of novel diabetic treatments, and our ultimate goal is to cure diabetes by gut microbiota therapy.
Week4&5
Apr 22nd-May 3rd
Discussing details about the design. Between fish and rats, we choose fish as the experimental subject.
May
Week6
May 4th-12th
The basic plan was established, and the equipment used has been chosen. Electrochemical sensor is chosen for its high sensitivity, reliable reproducibility, and simple operation.
Through market investigation, we found out that most blood glucose level detectors employ the one-time test paper slips and could not fulfill our need to continuously monitor blood glucose level; thus, we decided to create our own electrochemical sensors.
Considering the size of sensor, we rejected the previous plan to employ fish as the experimental subject.
Week7
May 13th-19th
Consult documents and design the electrochemical sensor. We design our electrochemical sensor with CAD software and later simulate and verify the design with comsol software. After the result indicates that our electrochemical sensor is functionally operational, we finally produce home-made electrochemical sensors with screen printing. Organ-on-a-chip is planned to be the test object.
Week8
May 20th-26th
Consult documents about organ-on-a-chip; learn basics in Synbio and determine the synthetic microbial chassis. Conduct an interview with diabetes expert Dr. Pingsheng Liu.
Week9
May 27th-Jun 2th
Work suspended for exams.
June
Week10&11
Jun 3rd-16th
Design the biological experiment and organ-on-a-chip.
For the experiment, our team consulted documentation, prepare E. coli and B. subtilis strains for the experiment, and design the experimental procedures.
For organ-on-a-chip, our team studied the mechanism of insulin synthesis and release. Knowing that liver is essential in glucose reduction, our team investigated basic functional unit of the liver and design organ-on-a-chip.
Week12&13
Jun 17th-30th
Our team analyzed the test requirement, designed analog and digital modules, determined the selection of modules, and started the hardware design documents and hardware schematic framing.
July
Week14&15
Jul 1st-14th
Study laboratory safety protocols and conduct safety training, prepare needed materials. Electric circuit scheme and PCB design are finalized.
Week16
Jul 15th-21st
Produce the first batch of electrochemical sensors. Conduct basic biological experiments, and familiarize ourselves with experiment tools. Let factory produce circuit boards and weld chips and modules, and start the development of device debugging software. Have the first communication with UCAS-China. Learn to use laser engraving machine and micro processing technology to prepare for organ chip.
Week17
Jul 22nd-28th
Test the first batch of electrochemical sensors at the electrochemical workstation; the result shows that these sensors cannot meet our requirement, so we decided to refine them and make another batch of sensors. In laboratory, we constructed plasmids and conducted subcloning experiments, including purification, restriction digestion, gel extraction, ligation, transformation, and colony PCR.
Week18
Jul 29th-Aug 4
Produce the second batch of electrochemical sensors; our team added potassium ferrocyanide. The CV curve of the second batch of sensors is better than that of the first batch. We also began to produce the third batch.
The vectors were successfully constructed. It was verified at the DNA level that the plasmid is transformed into the B. subtilis.
An issue in organ-on-a-chip: the liver cells didn’t attach to the PET membrane. We consulted documents and conducted surface specialization in order to increase cell adhesion.
Interview doctors and patients at hospital, disseminate knowledge in Synbio and iGEM, as well as our own project.
August
Week19
Aug 5th-11th
Specialization of team members. Discuss logo design. Cultivate liver cancer cells, fermentation of engineering bacteria, extract protein and conduct SDS-PAGE electrophorosis to verify expression of HPI gene at protein level. The third batch of electrochemical sensors meets the requirement of our design.
Week20
Aug 12th-18th
Cultivate liver cancer cells from different sources and select strong ones for primary experiments. Construct the organ-on-a-chip.
Week21
Aug 19th-25th
Electric circuit was produced and we started software debugging. Test conditions of planting liver cancer cells into organ chip.
Week22
Aug 26th-31st
Continue cultivating liver cancer cells in organ chip. Keep debugging the device, finish debugging BT module, continue debugging ADC module
September
Week23
Sep 1st-8th
Work suspended due to beginning of school.
Week24
Sep 9th-15th
Liver cancer cells are successfully cultivated in organ-on-a-chip. Software debugging of electronic circuit equipment is completed.
Week25
Sep 16th-22nd
Start composing wiki materials.Assemble sensors on organ-on-a-chip. The liver cells are implanted into organ-on-a-chip. After 24-hours cultivation, our team observe the attachment of cells, and finally add engineering bacteria and sample. Then we would test the complete version of organ-on-a-chip at electrochemical workstation. Test connection between device and app.
Week26
Sep 23rd-30th
Assemble sensors on organ-on-a-chip , and test the equipment.
October
Week27
Oct 1st-7th
Days for rest
Week28
Oct 8th-14th
Compose and revise the wiki documents, evaluate and submit Judging Form.
Week29
Oct 15th-21st
Revise the wiki documents.
