Team:Imperial College London

From 2010.igem.org

(Difference between revisions)

Revision as of 15:37, 25 October 2010

Department of Bioengineering

Division of Molecular Biosciences

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 of waiting before a detecatble output is produced. To tackle this issue in the field, it is crucial that a new generation of biosensors be designed that can respond in minutes. With this in mind, we have engineered a fast, modular sensor framework which allows for quick 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 as part of our modular sensor framework: a novel cell surface biosensor customisable for specific parasitic proteases and a 'fast-response' module capable of producing a detectable output in minutes. These two technologies are linked to each other by a quorum sensing signalling system. To demonstrate the utility of biosensors contatining these technologies, we have designed and modified B. subtilis to give a clearly visible colour readout upon detecting the waterborne Schistosoma parasite which affects 200 million people worldwide.

Take a look at our module page to get a better idea of how the system works.

Flickr	Twitter
If nothing appears here, something has gone wrong! Please enable JavaScript to continue.

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.

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 |style="width:600px;"|''“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 of waiting before a detecatble output is produced. To tackle this issue in the field, it is crucial that a new generation of biosensors be designed that can respond in minutes. With this in mind, we have engineered a fast, modular sensor framework which allows for quick detection of a range of different parasites, and may also be used as an environmental tool for mapping their spread.
-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 as part of our modular sensor framework: a novel cell surface biosensor customisable for specific parasitic proteases and a 'fast-response' module capable of producing a detectable output in minutes. These two technologies are linked to each other by a quorum sensing signalling system. To demonstrate the utility of biosensors contatining these technologies, we have designed and modified ''B. subtilis'' to give a clearly visible colour readout upon detecting the waterborne Schistosoma parasite which affects 200 million people worldwide.
-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.