13: Before you begin a semester overview

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Nathan Reyna, Ruth Plymale, & Kristen Johnson
Ouachita Babtist University & University of New Hampshire

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The protocols included in this lab manual are part of a Synthetic Biology undergraduate research course (CURE) designed by the authors. The lab presented in this manual is designed for a Genetics or Biotechnology class and has been used at both two-year and four-year institutions. The workflow for the semester long course is shown below. The lab is based off the iGEM genetic engineering competition (iGEM.org). Students are tasked with designing and then engineering a biological device in a bacterium (E.coli) using standardized DNA parts called Bio-Bricks from the iGEM registry. The process of engineering the device requires iteration of standard molecular biology cloning techniques which are outlined in this lab manual, some including video protocols. Additionally, provided are appendices with recipes for reagents, supply/resources list, and instructor recommendations. Instructors are encouraged to watch a series of implementation videos created for the Arkansas-CURE Projects Synthetic Biology faculty training workshop.

Support for this manual was provided by:

Support was provided by the Center for Advanced Surface Engineering, under the United States National Science Foundation Grant No. IIA-1457888 and the Arkansas EPSCoR Program and by the Cell Biology Education Consortium an NSF-RCN-UBE (Grant No. 1827066). We thank Malcom Campbell and the Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT) for introducing us to Synthetic Biology.