10. March 2010 by admin.

I hope someone’s able to watch the webcast. I expect they’ll leave the feed up so we can review it later. It’s only in D.C. as well, maybe one of you could make it.

How synthetic biology is changing the way we look at biological threats
March 11 2010, 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m

-Light refreshments available at 3 PM
-5th Floor Conference Room
-Woodrow Wilson Center

Luckily  I had the fortune of getting out of work a few minutes early so I could catch this. It was a nice presentation. I have been in contact with Agent You, and he has offered to work in tandem with our community as it develops to ensure clean lines of communication and proper education on areas of safety and security. Agent You works in tandem with Piers from iGEM and both are involved with Biological Weapons and WMD conventions.

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10. March 2010 by admin.

and those who couldn’t make the meeting.

Ryan here.

Just wanted to let you know that the foundational meeting of BioMore GenoBlasts was a success. We will be moving forward to both form a team for the 2010 iGEM competition, and also focusing on building a DIY-Bio community around the skills, experience and connections we forge in the process.

We had about 20 people show up, and around 15 that turned their questionnaires back in, expressing interest in the foundation of the community. Of those 15, about 9/10 have expressed interest in participating in one way or another with the iGEM team. Some have expressed the interest in offering their mentor-ship or various resources to simultaneously build both so that we can expand upon these ideas and grow an invaluable resource for DIY-Bio, positioned so close to the Nation’s Capital and federal resources as well as the vast bio-medical community of Baltimore, Maryland.

For those of you whom are a bit unfamiliar with the iGEM process. It seems the
DIY-Bio community grew out of the frustration with folks who had been involved in iGEM that wanted more then 2.5 months to experiment with putting these cellular circuits together. Within a larger community, they could experiment with systems that have a longer replication cycle and come up with more advanced projects. iGEM participants have a history of birthing a number of successful start-ups in the synthetic biology field.

So where do we go from here…

Well first of all, if you didn’t make it, then let us know if you still want us
to keep in touch as the community develops. We will be putting together a series of workshops and lectures to begin building a skill base for the students
involved in the project. Our hopes are to offer these to members of the
community as well, and perhaps even document them to leave available here on the site so they can be viewed at leisure when folks can’t make it. I’m not big on spam so please let me know if these updates are bothersome to you.

The independent study class for the iGEM team will begin in summer semester at CCBC, however we also have mentors with other facilities Towson University, HCCC, and the Harford Hackerspace have mentioned the possibilty of laboratory, equipment resources that we are currently exploring the dimensions of. As soon as we iron out the mechanics of it, we will be posting the information, as well as any further schedules of community events.

I know I had heard of possible interest prior to the meeting that individuals
from JHU and UMBC might also be interested and we certainly still welcome additional participation, whether with iGEM or even with the community as well.

Please feel free to forward additional stories, links, resources, associated
lectures etc to help build up the site. You should also be able to log-in here and post related information.

CHECK OUT THE DIY FOR BEGINNER’S PAGE

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