First Meeting

So after exchanging a few emails with Sara and being somewhat confused as to what the project would require, I thought it was time to pop onto Campus.

I'd spent the Bank Holiday weekend back in Yorkshire with the family so thought I'd pass through Coventry on the way back to Southampton and kill two birds with one stone! After having lunch and catching up with my good friend James, I had my meeting with Sara at 14:00.

After explaining Synthetic Biology basics, Sara showed me some documentation sent to her by her Biologist colleagues in Nottingham. It described the process of forming a plasmid for insertion into a bacteria. The plasmid has to be made up of certain genetic parts, however, finding which ones are best and checking that they are compatible is hard. Therefore, the project Sara was proposing is to find a combination of genetic parts that would create the desired genetic code, and then to attempt to resolve any DNA code conflicts. These conflicts occur when a sequence of ATCG modules that "end" a genetic part, appear before the genetic sequence for that part is complete. Due to the fact that amino acids can be coded for using many different combinations, it is probably possible to permute these ATCG sequences, until all such conflicts are resolved.

I told Sara that I thought the project sounded very interesting and was more than happy to take it on! After a little head scratching, we came up with a title of 'DNA Synthesis Tool with Conflict Resolution". While not the jazziest title, it certainly seemed to summarise what we had discussed.

Before leaving, I asked her what resources I could consult to get a decent enough grounding for the biology part of the project. My first job is to Google and maybe find a book or two covering, 'Recombinent DNA'.

After that, I packed up, wished Sara a good day and travelled back to Southampton feeling good that I'd got the Third Year Project stuff sorted out. I had however, managed to leave behind the documentation describing the process! Can't win them all >.<.