Team:Utah State

             <td bgcolor="#000000"><font face="Century Gothic, Arial, San Serif" color =#ffffff><p>The future of synthetic biology lies in expanding our ability to  engineer genes in new organisms. Our project develops a system to  engineer the genome of the photosynthetic cyanobacterium Synechocystis  sp. PCC6803, establishes expression standards for this species, and adds  a set of characterized Synechocystis promoters and ribosome binding  sites to the BioBrick toolbox. We developed a BioBrick vector that can  be used to assemble parts and devices in E. coli. Upon transformation  into Synechocystis, it integrates the device directly into the genome  through homologous recombination. We utilized genes that were activated  under a variety of conditions, from those responding to heat stress to  ones oscillating under a circadian rhythm. The promoters and ribosome  binding sites were converted into BioBrick-compatible parts, and  subsequently characterized. Our success will enable the use of existing  parts in new species, and will expand the range of devices that can be  built. </p></font></td>