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The Bio-Safety Net

Welcome to the wiki of the HKU igem team 2010

The title of our project this year is "The Bio-Safety Net"

We are from the University of Hong Kong. Our team was formed in early April with 12 student members from different areas of studies.

Contact us

Abstract of our project

Bacteria can be designed to perform promising tasks, such as the biodegradation of oil to clean up oil spills. Yet, there are risks associated with the possibility that living bacteria may perform undesired activities. Our goal is to introduce a “bio-safety net” that will apply to virtually all genetically engineered bacteria as a vital termination step after they have finished fulfilling their function. We will make this possible by introducing a "suicide" mechanism that is triggered under specific conditions. By using different promoters, the system can respond to changes in environmental factors and control expression specific to a chosen factor. Such mechanism can be easily assembled and incorporated into bacteria through the use of biobricks.

Our team’s project is a “bio-safety net” that limits the survival of bacteria according to tailored conditions.

In our project we aimed to and have created a “bio-safety net” that can limit the survival of bacteria according to tailored conditions. Although there are limitations to our findings we have highlighted problems and identified key areas for focus in future research.