Achievements
The following list sums up all of our achievements and refers to pages of this wiki containing detailed information. Next to this we recorded the original presentation of our project in Boston at the Giant Jamboree, which sums up and explains the project in less than 20 minutes:
Awards
- Best Foundational Advance Project
- Best New Basic Part
Nominations
- Best Software
- Best Hardware
- Best New Composite Part
- Best Part Collection
We established two orthogonal methods for the detection of unnatural base pairs in a target sequence: an Oxford Nanopore sequencing application and an enzyme based detection method
Development of a software suite for these orthogonal methods
Integration and characterization of the nucleotide transporter PtNTT2 from P.tricornutum in E.coli for the uptake of unnatural nucleoside triphosphates
Confirmation that certain Taq DNA polymerases can efficiently incorporate unnatural nucleotides
Construction of a toolbox consisting of five aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases for incorporation of non-canonical amino acids
Colocalization of the RuBisCo and and subcellular compartment (carboxysome) using a fluorescent amino acid
Development of a photoswitchable lycopene pathway
Design, chemical synthesis and proof of functionality of a novel, fully synthetic amino acid based on cyanonitrobenzothiazol and asparagine
Modeling more than ten new aaRS sequences
Library development with several hundred thousand sequences for selecting aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases
Construction of positive and negative selection plasmids for the evolution of new synthetases for non-canonical amino acids
Improvement of an aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase test-system by introducing a FRET-system and development of a ranking system
Construction of an LED panel for irradiating 96-well microtiter plates, which can be used to manipulate non-canonical amino acids and for other applications
Development of an Android App to control the LED panel with your smartphone via Bluetooth
Writing a biosafety report entitled “Auxotrophy to Xeno-DNA: A Comprehensive Exploration of Combinatorial Mechanisms for a High-Fidelity Biosafety System”
Writing the ChImp Report on “Chances and Implications of an Expanded Genetic Code”