Team:UNIFI/Background

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Background

Our project consists in creating two species of E. coli differing in the expression of a specific fluorescent protein (GFP, RFP), and to link fluorescence frequencies to sound frequencies using a color-to-sound translation software, whose input signal is the pattern of the emitted fluorescences. So, we’ll obtain a mix of sound as casual as the pattern of the emitted fluorescences, although one of our purposes is to make it harmonious. As a matter of fact, the fluorescent proteins are regulated by an oscillating circuit of quorum sensing molecules (AHL), further activated by IPTG and Tet, using both inducible and repressible promoters. The way which the oscillating system moves along the space of phases is defined by the concentration of IPTG and Tet. Therefore, our project is a Science Art project: a way of both science communication and research by means of artistic expression. Why Science Art? Science Art is the union of both scientific and artistic environments: we can let the creativity juices flow using scientific knowledges as a recreational pursuit. We think that this employing of science knowledges has got common features with biotechnological research since both are based on brainchild. We think that Science Art has got other advantages as an instrument of scientific disclosure: we’d like to think that our project, Sound of Coli, could show biotechnology from a new perspective and could demonstrate their potentials to the greater public as possible, leaving the technical terms typical of the scientific language for a more accessible musical experiment. This idea of utility of the Science Art comes from the fact that many goals of biotechnology are mostly unknown and not understand, sometimes obstructed. And why music? We chose to start this project since we asked ourselves if it was possible to introduce the sense of hearing into the DNA world. We aim to have bacteria play music by themselves and to achieve that we’ll be using a pentatonic scale. Moreover, we expect to obtain a chaotic behavior from bacteria, due to the oscillator system, thus altering in an unpredictable way the final musical output (bacteria will somehow write musical arrangement!)

Team Unifi

unifi.igem@gmail.com