Team:Imperial College London/Research

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Revision as of 14:55, 23 October 2010

Department of Bioengineering

Division of Molecular Biosciences

Research

A large amount of background reading went into designing our project. Here we each present some of the research papers that we found the most interesting, and what they are all about.

The neglected tropical diseases: The ancient afflictions of stigma and poverty and the prospects for their integrated control and elimination., Hotez et al, 2006.

This paper explains why NTDs are so in need of research and the problems they create in developing countries. Reading this made us really want to raise awareness of NTDs and promote research into diagnostics, treatment and environmental control of them.

Accumulation of a Recombinant Aspergillus oryzae Lipase Artificially Localized on the Bacillus subtilis Cell Surface., Kobayashi et al., 2000

cutL cDNA encoding a extracellular lipase, L1, from Aspergillus orzyae, was ligated to the cell wall binding domain (CWB) of the major autolysin LytC of B. subtilis. Expression and functionality of the recombinant protein CWB-Cut-L was tested using SDS-PAGE and zymography, showing that catalytic activity of L1 was maintained.

This paper was of fundamental importance for our detection module as it laid out nicely the possibility of anchoring peptides on the bacterial cell surface whilst maintaining the functionality. This proved to be precisely what we needed, allowing also for easy testing, as the major autolysin LytC used in this paper, is bind to the cell wall non-covalently and can thus be washed of the cell wall easily using high salt concentrations.

Human schistosomiasis, Gryseels et al., 2006

Schistosomiasis is a tropical disease caused by the water-borne schistosoma parasitehas infected over 200 milion people world wide. The disease is a cause of morbidity and can give rise to a number of complications in liver, intestines and urinary system. These are the result of complex immunological interactions with the parasite eggs in the human tissues. Furthermore diagnosis, treatment and prophylaxis are discussed.

This excellent review was most helpful in getting a broad overview of the parasitic life cycle, the disease schsitosomiasis as well as the conditions it can provoke in our body, without lacking detail on these parts. The article rounded up this summary with a great introduction into the treatment, diagnosis and approaches to the development of a vaccination, making it essential in for our wiki page on the parasite and schistosomiasis.

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