Team:SoundBio/Minterlab

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Minterlab
About Participating Teams Photos Results Safety Resources

SoundBio’s 2019 Minterlab

SoundBio iGEM’s Minterlab was hosted at a local YMCA, where we held a three-day event where elementary and middle school students were introduced to some bacteria basics, including bacterial transformation. On the first day, we went through the parts of bacteria with the use of crafts. We used shoe boxes as the membrane and added organelles, defining them in a way that kids would be able to easily understand. On the second day, the students swabbed three controlled items-- a phone, a doorknob, and a fingertip. Then, on the third day, we revealed the results of our swabs, and the results were compared amongst Minterlab teams. Our team held a successful Minterlab session, working with 43 school participants.

Participating Teams

IISc-Bangalore (India), Calgary iGEM (Canada), AFCM- Egypt (Egypt), and Baltimore BioCrew (United States) all took part in Minterlab, adapting our curriculum to best suit students in their local area. Further documentation on their Minterlabs can be found on their respective Wikis.

Photos

AFCM Egypt

IISC Bangalore

Baltimore BioCrew

Minterlab Results

As we analyzed the bacterial growth plates and samples taken from all the different teams, we realized that there were some trends in growth between the different items we tests. A common growth pattern for the phone swabs was a collection of colonies, some larger and some smaller, of bacteria. However, when doorknobs and other similar handles were swabbed, the data consistently showed lawns of bacteria. On the other hand, when fingertips were swabbed, they typically showed the fewest number of isolated bacterial colonies. While we expected that the handles would have lots of bacterial growth, we thought that fingertips would also have a lot of bacterial growth because they come into contact with lots of potentially very dirty surfaces. However, it seems like everyone was properly washing their hands that day!

The image to the left shows bacterial growth after swabbing the handle of a paper towel dispenser. As can be seen in the picture, there is “lawn-like” bacterial growth on this plate. The images at center and right show bacterial growth after swabbing phones. There was a lot less bacterial growth on phones, and growth was limited to several small colonies. The image in the center was taken from the SoundBio Team Minterlab whereas the picture to the right was taken from the Calgary Team Minterlab.

The following photos above are from the ACFM’s iGEM team results. These photos show the benchtop and phone swabs. The results below agree with the results yielded from the Calgary and Seattle teams. The benchtop results reveals that there are many colonies of bacteria on the plates.

Safety

We made sure the kids never handled the plated directly once they swabbed their object, and we also made sure to have the kids wear gloves. We contacted iGEM Safety HQ with our protocol to see if they had any tips on improving safety. The main feedback was making sure pathogenic microorganisms didn’t grow. So based off of feedback from our advisor Aida Hidalgo-Arroyo, we stuck with LB+agar without antibiotics based off the logic that pathogenic bacteria need specific conditions to grow, and will be outcompeted by non-pathogenic bacteria.

Minterlab Resources

SoundBio iGEM wanted to create a Minterlab Curriculum and Minterlab resources that were open source so that iGEM teams around the world who are interested, can set up a local Minterlab event.

Our team spent several weeks creating a curriculum handbook. In this curriculum, there are detailed instructions for activities, tips on teaching complex concepts to young children, and recommendations for how to spread out the curriculum into 5 days.

Our team also created a kids packet, which is a resource accompanying the curriculum handbook, but for the students to reference throughout the week.