Team:AFCM-Egypt/HP/Gold Integrated
GOLD Human Practice
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents a huge burden on the Egyptian community due to its high prevalence and its late detection which is largely attributed to the lack of specific and sensitive markers. This was the reason why we chose it as the villain in our story.
The interviews we conducted with various experts served only to strengthen our belief in the importance of the success of our project and the impact it might have on our society.
The CRISPR effect
It's true, last year's project didn't turn out as we hoped! And that was probably why most interviews revolved around what went wrong and how we could correct it, the results of our conversations were as follows:
- We will construct two synthetic circuit instead of one; the first is similar to last year's circuit but with modifications in our design and lab protocols to test the feasibility of the idea in the HCC cell culture. The second circuit will involve the use of CRISPR gene editing to knock in our chosen circular RNA into the genome, two issues regarding the second circuit were solved
through the help of one of our experts which were:
- Our main design depended on knock out of a mutated gene inside the HCC genome but our discussions made us consider that knocking in of our gene would result in better outcome.
- We decided to use a sgRNA to create double stranded breaks instead of using 2 gRNAs to induce single stranded breaks on both strands of the target genome. The loss of efficacy would be compensated by the use of homology- directed repair. This change is the result of our discussion with Dr Vincenzo Coppola from the cancer and genetics department at the University of Ohio.
Integrated Human Practices
Dr.Sherif El Khamese
Chair of Molecular Medicine, Krebs Institute, University of Sheffield.
Director of Research and Innovation.
Wellcome Trust Investigator, Krebs Institute, University of Sheffield.
As part of the Human practice, our IGEM team held several valuable discussion with experts in the field of Genomics like Dr. Sherif El Khamese; being that we where able to open discussion on our hypothesis for this year, we felt ecstatic and inspired
Pro Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub
Egyptian-British cardiothoracic surgeon.
Professor of Cardiothoracic surgery and Imperial College of London
Notable prizes:Order of Merit,Knight Bachelor,Order of the Nile
At the same note, we invited Prof Magdy to our college, Armed Forces College of Medicine, and we held a duo seminar where we addressed a specific topic of the importance of the early biomarker discovery in the diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma and other diseases
Assistant Professor Coppola, Vincenzo, Cancer Biology and Genetics Director, GEMMC
Wexner Medical center
The Ohio State University
We discussed our project with dr. Vincenzo and the role of CRISPR technique in treatment of Hepatocellular carcinoma which is a fatal illness in Egypt.
Prof. Mahmoud Abdelkader
President of the German University of Cairo
Proffessuer in Photodynamic Therapy
IGEM Egypt team also met with Prof. Mahmoud Abdelkader, and they considerably listened to a full seminar presented by him in his topic while openly discussing our Synbio interests of this year.
Educational Council
At the end of our work, we were asked to present in front of the leaders of the Egyptian Armed Forces to make sure that we are ready for the jamboree.
We sat down with representatives of Sim Era and Vitabiotics companies to discuss the feasibility of our project with them. We think they liked our idea since they decided to give us the rest of the fund we needed
