Molly Allen from the UC Berkeley wetlab team talks about their Clonebot project, for which they built a genetic self-lysis device and a Gateway cloning device.

"In an effort to optimize the manufacture of parts, we have designed Clonebots - a collection of devices and strains that aid in the synthesis and analysis of new parts."

Essentially, their group is trying to develop alternative protocols for manipulating genetic parts that is easy to scale and automate: "there are some unit operations that can be cost effectively automated at scale in the laboratory such as small volume liquid transfers, fluorescence measurements, and heating/cooling steps."

The team was one of the 6 finalists for the Grand Prize and won a gold medal for their accomplishments

Exciting! More info at: 2008.igem.org/Team:UC_Berkeley