January 2012

Cambridge-Santiago SynBio

14/01/12 23:54

Fernan Federici has returned from helping to set up and run a course in Synthetic Biology at the Universidad Catholica in Santiago, Chile. Fernan received his undergraduate degree from the Universidad Catholica, before heading to Cambridge to take up a Gates Foundation studentship. In Cambridge, Fernan has been involved in the development of protocols for teaching DNA construction using advanced Gibson assembly techniques and visible markers for gene expression and transformation in the form of biopigments and fluorescent proteins. He returned to Chile to introduce these protocols and help run the experimental course. The students did brilliantly, building multi-part DNA assemblies, and setting up the first Chilean team for the iGEM2012 competition.

Wellcome Image of the Month

14/01/12 15:35

In the lab, Fernan Fedrici and Marcia Sartor have dehydrated drops of Malbec wine from their home province of Mendoza, Argentina, before using polarizing light microscopy to capture this striking image, which has been selected as Image of the Month at the Wellcome Trust Image Collection. Fernan comes from a family of wine growers, and he and Marcia have been exploring connections between everyday materials and science, using advanced imaging and visualising techniques. For his day job, Fernan is building new systems for engineering morphogenesis in plants in the Haseloff lab. Marcia is an artist, and more of her work can be seen here, and more of Fernan’s images can be seen here.