Team:TU Delft/pages/project

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Project

The TU Delft iGEM Team 2010 is working on the biological conversion of hydrocarbons in aqueous environments. The project is split in 6 subtopics:

  • Conversion of hydrocarbons

The aerobic alkane conversion pathways of medium and long chain (<C36) alkanes from Gordonia sp. TF6 and Geobacillus thermodenitrificans will be the basis of our parts.

  • Hydrocarbon tolerance

Hydrocarbons are known to damage the cell membrane and some essential cell proteins. New biobricks will be made inspired by the genes from naturally hydrocarbon tolerant organisms.

  • Hydrocarbon solubility

In order to overcome the mass‐transfer limitation of hydrocarbons to water we will clone two genes coding for proteins with emulsifying capabilities.

  • Halotolerance

High salt concentrations are toxic to many microorganisms. Our aim is to create a biobrick which will facilitate cell growth at increased salt concentrations.

  • Genetic regulation

An alkane sensing mechanisms coupled to the catabolic repression system (crp) produces enzymes for hydrocarbon degradation when needed.

  • Genome‐scale modeling

Modeling approaches are used to explore the possibilities of valuable product formation from hydrocarbons.

The tasks of the team are roughly be divided into two groups. One group will deal mainly with the aspects related to the modeling and design of the synthetic system. A second group of students will mainly carry out the wet lab work.

Also the ethical and safety issues posed by synthetic biology will be considered. The synthesis of a DNA strand representing a set of genes arbitrarily chosen by the designer, and its insertion in a living cell will, in general, provide the host cell, with new emerging properties that were not present in the original organisms. This poses several challenges in terms of safety and ethics that need to be addressed within the project.

All registered biobricks will be published here:

<groupparts>iGEM010 TU_Delft</groupparts>

Planning

The project can be divided into three phases:

The team members get to know each other, get a working knowledge of each other’s topic and start generating ideas.

  • Design phase

The students define the biological design which they want to carry out, together with the project specifications.

  • Production phase

The (wet-lab) realization of the system and the evaluation of its performance.

During the brainstorming phase, the involvement of the students will be part-time. There are weekly meeting to exchange ideas and discuss proposals. For the remaining 6 months covered by the actual project (May-October), the involvement of the team is full time.