Team:Imperial College London/Tour/Page One

|colspan="2" valign="top"|[[Team:Imperial_College_London/The_Team | The team]] embarked on our iGEM project in early July, after finishing our exams and having about a week off for a bit of rest and relaxation. There have been highs, there have been lows (our [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Diary/Week_One | diary]] can give you all the details, or even our [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Media/Videos | video diary]] if you're feeling adventurous!), but it's all part of the amazing journey that is iGEM. Follow this brief tour of our project for an idea of what we got upto.

|colspan="2" valign="top"|We had great fun with our initial [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Brainstorming | brainstorming]] sessions, but we soon focused on an area we found interesting: biosensors. Synthetic biology has great potential for biosensors, but there are definitely a few key problems with current solutions.

|colspan="2" valign="top"|After much deliberation, we decided that something with a strong health impact would be a good candidate for detection. But how, why, and what? This is when we brought our [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Human_Practices/Panel_Discussion | human practices]] to bear on the problem. A series of expert meetings, workshops and a panel discussion later, we found our target. Parasites - hard to detect, but easy to treat. In particular we looked at the [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Schistosoma | schistosoma parasite]], a neglected tropical disease which affects over 200 million people worldwide. If we could create a cheap, easy and safe system, then it might really make a difference.

|colspan="2" valign="top"|With a goal in mind, what was the most efficient way to develop our project? We decided to follow the engineering design cycle. We first produced a specification based on the problems we had identified with previous biosensors, combined with ethical and logistical factors identified through the [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Human_Practices/Report | human practices report]]. Next came the fun part.

|colspan="2" valign="top"|With our specification at the ready, how did we want to design our system? What [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Chassis | chassis]] should we use? How can we split up our project? After intense [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Research | research]] we settled on using ''B. subtilis'', and dividing the project into [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Modules | three modules]]. This makes it more powerful to use, simpler to create, and allows us to focus each module on solving an identified problem.

|colspan="2"|We decided to design a [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Modules/Detection | new mechanism for parasite detection]] - by using the proteases they release. A novel protein is bound to the cell surface, with a signalling peptide attached via a protease cleavage site. When the protease comes along, the signal peptide is released, allowing it to activate our signaling module.

|colspan="2"|To transduce the signal we used a [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Modules/Signaling | quorum sensing system]] of a gram positive bacterium. The two component signal transduction system taken from S. pneumoniae transfers our peptide signal into the cell, activating the fast response module.

|colspan="2"|Our [[Team:Imperial_College_London/Modules/Fast_Response | fast response mechanism]] is based around using an enzymatic amplification step acting upon a presynthesised substrate. This greatly reduces the time required for producing a recognisable output, enabling useful field testing kits.