[BBF Standards] BioHackathon, or Characterization Challenge

[Josh Perfetto]

I see this discussion taking two separate paths.  One is primarily an
inter-lab collaboration to perform useful work needed to advance the state
of BioBricks.  The other is a community-building event which may push the
limit further in designing systems based on BioBricks.  Both will result in
a sharing of information throughout the community, albeit information of a
different sort.  Both are valuable activities.  I think Mac outlined a good
approach for what I am terming an inter-lab collaboration.  For a community
event, the design-a-thon idea Jason presented earlier is very
interesting-especially since this approach seems to be where we want to be
headed with BioBrick-based design.  The design of new systems, possibly
around problems we wanted to tackle, could take place at such an event, with
synthesized DNA being ordered after the event and shared between group
members, who could perform wetlab testing independently.  Possible
problems/ideas:

 

-          It may take a few iterations to get the designed systems working.
Subsequent collaboration could take place via email/Skype/Wiki, and/or this
could be a recurring event.

-          I'm not sure what the community interest in this would be.  If it
were light then such an event might best be run consecutively with SB 4.0 or
another such event.  However simply scheduling one such event may attract a
lot of external interest and draw more people into the community.  If the
interest is large enough, it may be possible to have multiple projects, some
more complex for the experienced members to push the design limits, and some
more simple for newer members to bite their teeth on, perhaps with the
guidance of one or two more experienced members.

 

-Josh

 

 

From: standards-bounces at biobricks.org
[mailto:standards-bounces at biobricks.org] On Behalf Of Mackenzie Cowell
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 2:28 PM
To: Bryan Bishop
Cc: standards at biobricks.org
Subject: Re: [BBF Standards] BioHackathon, or Characterization Challenge

 

I theoretically agree with Bryan's comment. However, I also agree with John
and Jason that in practice there would be significant overhead for bringing
non-native lab members up to speed on all the little details of how to
accomplish something in the host lab, and that more time might even be spent
on explaining the lab's logistics to the visiting experimenters (where is
the agar?  where are the antibiotics?  where are the small falcon tubes?
wait, you don't use falcon tubes? etc.).  Perhaps it would be possible to
accommodate a few visitors with lots of preparation and organization by a
sort of experimental coordinator beforehand, but let's not try and tackle
that problem this time.

 

Instead, I envision:

 

* continuing the discussion on this list, solidifying organizational issues
and an overview of what we would like to accomplish with the community
gardening / barnraising party.

** augmenting the discussion with a conference call between interested labs
to nail down the specifics

* picking a date,

* identifying point people in each lab who will organize the event locally
and be responsible for setting up teleconference equipment (i.e. a group
skype chat with speakers, ichat video, etc.)

* DOING A TEST RUN

* linking up all the participating labs on the chosen date and producing
some quality characterization data and / improving the categorization and
documentation of existing and new parts in the registry.

 

I also very much support the idea of bringing iGEM teams in on this.

 

mac

 

On Feb 10, 2008 11:38 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday 10 February 2008, John Cumbers wrote:
> Yes I agree, I was thinking about it and it just complicates it to
> have a lab host it, we just need to decide on what we're doing and
> then each lab can do it at the same time, e.g same weekend and
> publish results on-line. I'm open to suggestions, Vincent which
> promoter do you want to start with :) cheers,

Although I am not against having many labs working on the same problem
at the same time, separating them all to their usual labs and routines
significantly reduces the buzz, and this buzz is something valuable.

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/


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-- 
Mac Cowell
iGEM Coordinator
igem.org
231.313.9062 

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