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The Bio-Safety Net

Welcome to the wiki of the HKU igem team 2010

The title of our project this year is "The Bio-Safety Net"

We are from the University of Hong Kong. Our team was formed in early April with 12 student members from different areas of studies.

Contact us

Abstract of our project

Bacteria could be designed to perform promising tasks, such as the biodegradation of oil to clean up oil spills. Yet, there are risks associated with the possibility of living bacteria performing undesired activities. Our goal is to introduce a “bio-safety net” that will be applicable to virtually all genetically engineered bacteria as a vital termination step after their tasks have finished. We have made this possible by introducing a "suicide" mechanism, that will be triggered under specific conditions. By combining different promoters, the system can respond to changes in environmental factors and control expression specific to chosen factors. Such mechanism can be easily assembled and incorporated to bacteria through the use of biobricks.

Our team’s project is a “bio-safety net” that limits the survival of bacteria according to tailored conditions.