Homework
Weekly homework submissions:
Week 1: Principles & Practices
Documentation for Week 1 assignment in HTGAA 2026: Project proposal, governance, reflection.
Week 2: DNA Read, Write, and Edit
HTGAA 2026 – Week 2 documentation: Applying gene synthesis, reading, and editing to my plastic eater project.
HTGAA 2026 – Week 3 Homework.
HTGAA 2026 – Week 4 homework: Protein Design Part I (Conceptual Questions, Protein Analysis & Visualization, ML-Based Design Tools, and Group Brainstorm)
Week 5 — Protein Design Part II
HTGAA Spring 2026 | Week 5 Homework Designing peptide binders for A4V SOD1 and engineering MS2 L-protein mutants using protein language models and structural prediction. Part A — SOD1 Binder Peptide Design Target: Superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) carrying the A4V mutation (Ala→Val at residue 4), which causes familial ALS by destabilising the N-terminus and promoting toxic aggregation.
Week 6 — Genetic Circuits Part I: Assembly Technologies
Assignment: DNA Assembly Question 1 — Components of the Phusion High-Fidelity PCR Master Mix and Their Purpose The Phusion HF PCR Master Mix is a pre-formulated 2X concentrate containing all enzymatic and chemical components needed for PCR. Only template, primers, and nuclease-free water need to be added by the researcher. Its key components are:
Week 7 — Genetic Circuits Part II: Neuromorphic Circuits
Assignment Part 1: Intracellular Artificial Neural Networks (IANNs) Question 1: Advantages of IANNs over traditional Boolean genetic circuits Traditional genetic circuits compute Boolean functions — AND, OR, NAND, NOR — where each input is treated as fully on or fully off, and the output is discrete. This binary logic imposes a hard constraint: the circuit cannot distinguish how much of a signal is present, only whether it is present. IANNs overcome this and several related limitations.