Taking a small break from the DIYbio course to create something that is a bit more hands on. It was getting very Meta with the "How to teach yourself how to teach yourself"!

We're gearing up here at our community lab to start doing some SynBio projects using the uLoop Assembly standard. Through this people should learn how to play around with plasmids on benchling, design some inserts that suit the uLoop assembly standard, basic lab stuff like prepping competent cell lines, plating bacteria, transforming bacteria, etc etc. Most files, plasmids, and the Paper can be found here.

Benchling view of the different plasmids we'll be using

It's a pretty thick read so I'll be creating a quick intro once I'm more across the methodologies on a google slide in the above folder. You can visit the site of the creators for more info though.

uloop.org visit and have a peruse.

The goal of the project is to use different fluorescent proteins and promoters with the uLoop system. Very basic, but once you learn how to use the system, you can swap out your fluorescent proteins for more interesting enzymes/proteins to express and do all manner of biological processes. Biosensors, new molecules, degradation of plastic or other waste materials, whatever!

If you sign up to benchling for a free account as a not for profit (which you are) you should be able to add an organization i created to share the files, protocols, etc.

Once you click on "Add Organization" you can look for "DIYbio" then "DIYbio_OpenProjects"

The project is called uLoop SynBio.

uLoop is exciting to me because it builds off more advanced assembly standards like Mobius Cloning, which itself craps all over "biobricks" due to a limitless (theoretically) number of parts you can assemble to create new genetic circuits...my biased opinion there, still exciting and very new to the world of SynBio.

EDIT: If after you join the benchling project and want to assist in getting protocols etc together yell out and i can give you admin rights on benchling :) I'm very much re-teaching myself so everyone is welcome to contribute.