Team:UIUC-Illinois

PROJECT PROPOSAL

The 2010 Illinois iGEM Bioware team project involves the construction of a biological system that functions as a decoding nanofabricator. As a continuation of the previous Illinois iGEM Bioware project: The Bacterial Decoder, the decoding bionanofabricator will produce specifically structured, purified, metallic ores depending on the presence of metals in its environment. This system will also possess the capacity to produce metal alloys by analyzing the presence and combination of specific metals in the environment. This system will take advantage of metal-respiring and metal detoxifying microbes that possess the ability to reduce metals as terminal electron acceptors and/or reduce toxic forms of metals into insoluble, harmless forms. The decoding nanofabricator will emphasize the capacity of information processing in biological systems to perform human-defined tasks in industrial, manufacturing, computing, and environmental applications.