Talk:CH391L/S14/Cellcountingmemory

Comments
--drewtack (talk) 14:13, 24 March 2014 (CDT)Overall this is pretty good, the first think I noticed is that I can not see the images without clicking on them to make it larger. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, (?), but my initial thought is you might want to make these particular images to be large enough to read the figures. But, between this and your presentation I definitely have a better understanding of counters.


 * Jeffrey Barrick (talk) 14:40, 24 March 2014 (CDT) Can you investigate papers for counting the number of cell divisions that have happened... with the application of causing cells to die after they divide a certain number of times?


 * --Dennis Mishler (talk) 13:40, 25 March 2014 (CDT)Relating to Drew's comments, I would number the figures: Fig 1, 2, 3...  And Figures 2 and 3 are not easy to read in the page.  When clicking on the figures, they get larger and are legible.  However, see if you can improve the in-page figures.  Also, the legends need more description.  Ok, so Figure 2 is a "genetic counter based on transcription", what does that mean?  What is happening?  A couple of sentences of description would go a long way.


 * --Dennis Mishler (talk) 13:40, 25 March 2014 (CDT) What other transcriptional counting methods have been developed? You say there are a few...  I would love to see alternative methods.


 * --Dennis Mishler (talk) 13:40, 25 March 2014 (CDT) For your future directions, perhaps include a figure or some more information or a model on what could be done or what people are trying to do.

Also in the Intro perhaps exchange "certain natural occurrences" to "certain naturally occurring"? Good examples in the counting section- perhaps just link some of the terminology out so readers can reference if they want. Good job :)
 * --Mindy (talk) 16:52, 27 March 2014 (CDT)Very thorough- I would suggest possibly rewording the sentence under counting that begins with "counters," the wording is difficult to follow.

--Dennis Mishler (talk) 12:55, 28 March 2014 (CDT) Jorge's Critique

Nuts and bolts: I think it needs more new content and more citations to other literature. Figures are fine in general, they just need better legends. I did not catch any spelling errors and I believe in general the article was grammatically well written. Bigger picture: I would’ve liked to see an expanded section on potential applications of these systems. I would probably pick one of the systems and expand in potential applications. Introduction seemed a bit incomplete to me. The author could probably use review in reference 3 to explain more in general what synthetic memory is, probably even including one of the nice figures in this paper. This might even be a completely new section on what the general approach to obtain synthetic cell memory is. This is minor and probably more a personal preference, I would’ve liked to see more details on the systems explained in the article. It also seems to me that there must be more studies that could be presented here or at least listed. In summary, except for expanding a bit on applications, on the general approach to synthetic memory and listing more examples of cell memory and counting, I think the wiki does not need a lot more work.
 * --Dennis Mishler (talk) 12:58, 28 March 2014 (CDT) I don't normally comment within a review, but I agree with Jorge's first sentence. Essentially, we only see the key paper, which we (as a class) are reading... 

Overall Format and structure: Overall format and structure seems sound and reasonable.

Introduction and background material: I think it needs to be expanded to explain the general approach of synthetic biologists to obtain bugs that could count or store information.

Methods and main body/concepts: Genetic Toggle Switch: it is not very obvious how this system represents one with memory. I suggest adding a sentence addressing this in a simpler manner so that new incomers could understand right away. Transcriptional counter: I know is a bit complicated but the cr-taRNA used in this paper might need to be briefly explained. At least in simple terms: “taRNA activates translation by interacting with RBS sequestering cr sequence”.

Relation to iGEM and future directions: I would pick one or two iGEM projects a right a couple of sentences explaining what they did.

Figures, Figure legends, and citations: Figures seem not to have been mentioned in the body of the article. In other words, they were not referred when necessary to assist in understanding what is written. They need expanded legends.