The Synthetic Genome Summer Course 2016
The Synthetic Genome Summer Course was held at the University of Edinburgh on the 3rd – 7th July 2016.
Thirty attendees came from all around the the world representing many different scientific backgrounds, from undergraduates to research fellows and from academia to industry to DIY Bio.
Whilst on the course, the attendees learned how to:
- SCRaMbLE synthetic pathways and strains
- Use CRISPR to debug phenotype defects
- Use Golden Gate assembly and automated liquid handling to build pathway libraries
- Isolate yeast gDNA with GC Preps
- Perform high-efficiency yeast transformations
- Use PCRTags to differentiate between WT and synthetic sequences
See the experimental results section to see some of the strains that they generated.
As well as learning new wetlab techniques, software tool tutorials were given on:
- Designing synthetic genomes using Biostudio (Giovanni Stracquadanio)
- Browsing genome designs using the Sc2.0 Resource Hub (Robert McKiernan)
- Using Benchling to design CRISPR guide RNAs and plan Golden Gate Assembly experiments
Industry talks included speakers from:
- Molecular Devices
- Gen9
- Autodesk
- Labcyte
- ThermoFisher Scientific
- Twist Bioscience
- Merck
Academic talks were given by:
- Junbaio Dai, Tsinghua University
- Giovanni Stracquadanio, University of Oxford
- Leslie Mitchell, NYU
- Jim Ajioka, University of Cambridge
- Matthew Chang, National University of Singapore
- Mark Isalan, Imperial College London
- Romain Koszul, Institut Pasteur
A workshop to discuss the implications of synthetic genomes, “SCRaMbLing the social: a safe space for strange questions”, was led by Jane Calvert and Erika Szymanski from the University of Edinburgh.
The course was organised by Tom Ellis, Ben Blount, Robert McKiernan, Maureen Driessen and William Shaw from Imperial College London and Alistair Elfick and Aitor De Las Heras from the University of Edinburgh.
The course was made possible due to funding by the BBSRC and EPSRC as well as by the generous sponsorship by Benchling, ThermoFisher Scientific, Autodesk, Labcyte, SGI-DNA, Gen9, Twist Bioscience, SULSA, Molecular Devices and Agilent Technologies.
Sponsors
Synthetic Genome Summer Course 