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Team:Imperial College London
From 2010.igem.org
| Parasight | Extras |
| “More than two billion people around the world live with unrelenting illness due to parasites” - WHO Director General Lee Jong-wook.
Synthetic biology offers great opportunity for biosensors, however current designs require hours before useful output. To tackle this issue in the field, it's crucial that our project can respond in minutes, hence we have engineered a fast, modular sensor framework. This allows detection of a range of different parasites, and may also be used as an environmental tool for mapping their spread.
We have developed two new technologies that enable our modular input/output - a novel cell surface biosensor, customisable for specific parasitic proteases, linked through quorum-sensing to a new 'fast-response' module capable of producing a detectable output in minutes. To demonstrate the concept, we've designed and fabricated B. subtilis to give a striking colour readout upon detecting the waterborne Schistosoma parasite which affects 200 million people worldwide.
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| The Team | |
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| About iGEM | Sponsored By |
| The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) is the premiere undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition. Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools over the summer, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. This project design and competition format is an exceptionally motivating and effective teaching method. |
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