Team:Uppsala-Sweden

Project Description:

Our project for iGEM 2010 involves building a biological rate detection sensor and demonstrating its usefulness in building a bio-clock and color display unit.

Many previous iGEM teams have come up with sensors for various applications ranging from toxic metals to life saving enzymes. Our attempt is to create a rate detect component which can quantify the signal. This rate detection sensor thus serves as a quantitative sensor which can work in combination with any of these chemical sensors. Apart from this utility, we believe the rate detect sensor in different configurations can allow the creation of complex circuits ranging from simple oscillators to complex data processing machines which can exist on the same system without affecting other components of the system owing to its rate specificity.

Using the rate detect sensors in combination with regulated transcription factors we create a color display unit. Each pixel of this Color Display Cell (CDC) consists of the three colors blue, green and blue each of which can be controlled individually. These CDC's in combinations can produce complex color pictures and even movies when combined with an efficient color degrading system which could be controlled by electric current.

The bio-clock is an attempt to see how robust the rate detection mechanism really is and if it could be used to build more complex devices. Although many different approaches have been made to build oscillators, an oscillator which displays time like a wrist watch or wall clock is a more unique proposition. We are using the rate detection sensors in combination to build such an oscillator which actually displays time as it oscillates.

Commercial value of the project:

This project has many specific as well as diverse applications which give it a huge commercial value. In its simplest form the rate detection sensor can be used in combination with other chemical sensors to quantify toxic chemicals or specific enzymes within the body. The sensor can be combined with drug delivery systems which delivers drugs at a particular time and place. Other application such as the Color Display Unit will help in further development of the field of bio-electronics. Bio-clock gives yet another approach to building an oscillator which has many applications of its own. Moreover, the rate detection sensor can be used in building complex devices that are not affected by noise due to their rate specific action.

Project concept:

The rate detect sensor is based on the concept of the ‘band detect cells’ designed by Basu et al 2005, at Princeton University. These band detect cells use two plasmids (pHD{x} and pLD) in combination to detect the AHL concentration band.