(Section 501) Team Venus-Meeting 1

Team Venus’ first meeting was basically an informational meeting, in which we gave out contact information, discussed the project, and thought of ideas. We began the meeting by choosing a Blogmaster on the basis of semester hours, location of residence, and internet access. Consequently, I was chosen as the Blogmaster because I am only taking 14 hours, I live on campus, and I have easy access to the internet. Then we passed a paper around for everyone to write down his/her cell phone number, so Harry can send an e-mail with all the phone numbers to the other team members via Web-CT. In our meeting, we also discussed meeting times. We decided that we would meet in person every week after lab, and we will also meet some other time online to discuss the project through the chat feature on Web-CT. One of our group members, however, does not have internet access at home, so we will try to make the online meeting time on days where she is here at College Station.

Also during our meeting, we discussed the project and ideas. To begin, some of our group members did not understand what we actually had to do for this project, so Thomas, who seemed to understand it the most, explained the objective to everyone else. If our understanding is correct, we need to create a device that will restore the gradient, or the voltage, across the membrane so ions will be able to diffuse through the membrane. We then brainstormed ideas of devices to accomplish the objective. One idea was to somehow create channels in the membrane to allow the ions through. Another idea was to do gene splicing and alter the genetic makeup to cause the cell to produce some protein to fix the problem. Our last idea was to create an artificial ion pump to pump the ions in and out of the cell. We also decided that our device should not just focus on restoration, but also on future prevention, and that it should be minimally invasive.

Our assignment for our next meeting is to collect information on skeletal muscle cells. We need to find out specifics of how a skeletal muscle cell works and what its special characteristics are. This is information we need to know to effectively design a device targeted for the skeletal muscle cells.