Beginning

iGEM team UPO-Sevilla is one of the smallest team of the 2010 iGEM contest. This is the first time we take part in iGEM and also in Synthetic Biology, so our goal this year is to learn all we can about SB and tools it uses. This is the reason why some 2nd course biotechnology students started looking for support in Universidad Pablo de Olavide, in Sevilla (Spain), at the beginning of their course. Luckily we soon found help from Fernando Govantes (Genetic Microbiology) and Luis Merino (Computer Engineering), two of our teachers. With them, we started to think we could take part in this international contest. Next, a student of computer engineering, Eduardo Pavón, completed the team.

In a short time, we started to meet for brainstorming. We got excited about making a project which came from our imagination. And not few times Fernando had to tell us that our ideas were biologically impossible. Little by little we narrowed the possibilities down to only two ideas: “remote control bacteria” and “targeting bacteria to a non-diffusible target exposed on a surface”. Finally we chose the last one; this idea would take the name of "Bacterial Crowding".

The other jigsaw we had to solve was: “Where were we going to get financing for the project?” In regard to that, we were lucky to meet Rosario Jiménez, OTRI (Oficina de Transferencia de Resultados de Investigación) director. She paid our inscription and also helped us to find sponsors for the remainder of our budget. We have to thank her for her help.