iGEM Wet-Lab Wiki
Turn laboratory work into an auditable chain of design, test, learning, and revision. Preserve failures and uncertainty when they explain the next decision.
For precedent research or substantial wet-lab work, read the curated findings in references/benchmark-corpus.md and the compact reviewed-page index. Read the full official award ledger only when verifying or listing winners and nominees. Verify consequential details live.
When documenting Engineering Success or a consequential iteration, adapt assets/templates/dbtl-cycle.md. Use the whole-wiki figure evidence card when a figure carries a headline claim.
Inventory the evidence
For each experiment, record the question, construct or sample, protocol version, conditions, controls, biological and technical replicates, raw data, analysis, result, uncertainty, failure modes, and decision it informed. Verify the actual notebook, figures, code, and Registry entries before drafting.
Separate page functions
- Design: rationale, mechanism, construct architecture, alternatives, and expected behavior.
- Experiments or Protocols: reproducible procedures and material conditions.
- Engineering: chronological or dependency-based Design-Build-Test-Learn cycles.
- Results: the clearest integrated experimental conclusions, with links to method and iteration.
- Measurement: validity, calibration, standards, dynamic range, controls, error, comparability, and interpretation.
- Parts: design and characterization linked to Registry records.
- Notebook: dated trace of work, not a replacement for synthesized conclusions.
Write each result as a traceable unit
Include purpose, method summary, controls and replicates, figure or table, quantitative interpretation, uncertainty, limitations, and the next decision. Captions should state what is shown, conditions, sample size, uncertainty display, and supported conclusion.
Do not treat a single representative image, technical replicate, fitted curve, or qualitative observation as broader proof than it is. Report values below detection or quantification limits conservatively. Keep axis units, normalization, exclusions, statistical tests, and transformations visible.
For a current iGEM season, verify the required Engineering Standard URL and any Registry requirements through the coordinator's season reference. A wiki Parts page does not replace complete Registry documentation. Treat the Registry as the canonical part artifact: verify identifiers, sequence and design, provenance, experience or characterization, and links back to supporting wiki evidence. For an Improved Part, compare against the original part as a control and cross-reference both entries. For a Part Collection, document the collection-level rationale and reuse path as well as each individual Registry entry.
Verify
Confirm that protocols match figures, Results match raw or processed data, Engineering cycles match chronology, part identifiers resolve, and duplicated numbers agree. Render tables, gels, microscopy, plots, equations, and long protocols at desktop and mobile widths.