[BBF Standards] BioHackathon, or Characterization Challenge

[Josh Perfetto]

Hi Jason,

 

I thinking reaching out to the past iGEM participants is a great idea.  And
I think it's important to take the opportunity to reach out and expand this
further than iGEM alone; to begin building up the larger community.

 

What are the practicalities in terms of getting sizable lab space?  Are
there any such labs that would be able to open up for a day or weekend?

 

-Josh

 

From: standards-bounces at biobricks.org
[mailto:standards-bounces at biobricks.org] On Behalf Of Jason Morrison
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 7:55 PM
To: standards at biobricks.org
Cc: Kim de Mora
Subject: Re: [BBF Standards] BioHackathon, or Characterization Challenge

 

Yes!

Mac, Kim, and I were chatting about such an idea a few weeks back, under the
guise of a Registry wiki gardening party (which would also involve garnering
additional characterization data).

I think that amassing quality characterization data would be a great boost
for the usefulness of BioBricks and that it offers a great bang-for-the-buck
in terms of benefit derived from effort put in; very tangible and useful
data can be gotten out of one focused day or weekend.

I think that spending some time beforehand to identify the best targets
(most benefit from receiving this focus) is key to getting the best bang out
of this.  Is there a clear choice here, or perhaps a good metric for judging
(i.e. use-to-characterization ratio)?

A few questions that come to mind:
* I think it's a great idea and gesture to offer labs as hosts (and I love
the live video+chat idea).  However, would there be a disadvantage to
opening it up to any labs that would like to participate?
* Would it be appropriate to reach out to past iGEM participants?

Jason

On Feb 9, 2008 3:34 PM, John Cumbers <johncumbers at gmail.com> wrote:

>>How about focusing on the characterization of existing biological
systems ?

This is a really cool idea, perhaps we could have one on each coast, and one
in London/Europe too?  All running together with video link/chat.  I offer
our Brown iGEM lab as a potential host lab, although it is not so big can
only hold ~12 at a squeeze.  Perhaps we could find an alternative venue
outside the lab environment, e.g we could each brought along different
pieces of equipment, or rent a lab for the day...

cheers, 
John





On Feb 9, 2008 6:57 AM, Vincent Rouilly <vincent.rouilly at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,


the idea of a regular BioHackathon is really cool.
It would boost a lot the community spirit (like the iGEM Jamboree).
It could as well help to build a critical mass to achieve great things.

As Jason said, building biological system still takes too long for
such 1-day-type of event.
How about focusing on the characterization of existing biological
systems ?

You get 50-100 people probing an already existing piece of DNA (or a
mutation library of it) . Maybe they explore different working
conditions (temperature, PH, type of chemical stimuli, ...)
The BioHackathon becomes a 'Bio-Characterization Challenge'. At the
end, data and protocols are collected, everything is shared, and open
to further analysis by the rest of the community.

Prior to meeting-up, the community could go through a vote to select
the piece(s) of DNA on which they want to focus during the next event.
I would love having a first meeting on 'Characterization of inducible
promoter(s)'

Vincent.



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-- 
John Cumbers,  Graduate Student
Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry
Biology and Medicine 
Brown University, Box G-W
Providence, Rhode Island, 02912, USA
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-- 
Jason Morrison
jason.p.morrison at gmail.com
http://jayunit.net
(585) 216-5657 

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