Difference between revisions of "Team:TCFSH Taiwan/Description"

 
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           <div class="topic"><p class="text_color">Overview</p></div>
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           <div class="topic"><p class="text_color">Background</p></div>
 
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           <div class="topic"><p class="text_color">How we design our biobrick</p></div>
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           <div class="topic"><p class="text_color">Description</p></div>
 
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     <p class="title">Motivation</p>
 
     <p class="title">Motivation</p>
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     <p class="content">A bottle of cold drink is a fantastic idea on a scorching summer day, but what if the drink is contaminated with plasticizers? Many people know that plastic bottles will release harmful plasticizers into the drink at high temperatures, so they sensibly avoid leaving bottled drinks or water in hot places, like their cars. However, what if the drink has been contaminated during transportation from the factory to the retail store? Besides bottled beverages, many other products, such as cosmetics or medicine, may pose potential threats to human health if they are stored at inadequate temperatures or exposed to sunlight for too long during the delivery process. The danger is real and immediate, but it is humanly impossible to monitor every delivery procedure. Therefore, we plan to invent a biosensor which can help monitor and ensure the cargo quality in transit.
+
     <p class="content">A bottle of cold drink is a fantastic idea on a scorching summer day, but what if the drink is contaminated with plasticizers? Many people know that plastic bottles will release harmful plasticizers into the drink at high temperatures, so they sensibly avoid leaving bottled drinks or water in hot places, like their cars. However, what if the drink has been contaminated during transportation from the factory to the retail store?</p>
−
</p>
+
    <p class="content">Besides bottled beverages, many other products, such as cosmetics or medicine, may pose potential threats to human health if they are stored at inadequate temperatures or exposed to sunlight for too long during the delivery process.</p>
−
      
+
    <p class="content">The danger is real and immediate, but it is humanly impossible to monitor every delivery procedure. Therefore, we plan to invent a biosensor which can help monitor and ensure the cargo quality in transit.</p>
 +
 
 +
    <p class="title">Background</p>
 +
     <p class="content">The popularity of the Internet has been increasing considerably in the 21st century, and purchasing in virtual shops has thus become the mainstream consumer pattern. By investigating through our online <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebi-ulx8Z34ygy1nFjRwfkvc_Y9GV3f7YgbZ3w78md0AT0jg/viewform" style="color: orange">questionnaire</a>, we’ve found that at least 95.5% of customers do care about what happens with the items they have ordered during the delivery process. As such, we started to think of a way to ensure that the goods are placed in an optimal and safe environment during the whole process of delivery and transportation.</p>
 +
    <p class="content">Our idea was to design a sticker that changes color when exposed to inadequate temperature. The sticker can be attached to the boxes or products right before they are about to get transported, and when the sticker changes color, it means that the environment of the transportation is not adequate and therefore needs to be improved.</p>
 +
    <p class="content">Though we were inspired by the release of plasticizer from the bottle into the drinking water, we soon found that there is not much difference between the amount of plasticizer released at 25 degrees Celsius and that released at 35 degrees Celsius (or a bit higher). Thus, we decided to apply our product mainly to foods, especially drinks, as well as cosmetics and medicines. The target temperature we’ve set is 37 degrees Celsius, the temperature at which bacteria reproduce most rapidly.</p>
 +
    <p class="content">In order to have a better idea about the proper storage temperature of drinks, we went to interview a few superintendents of VEDAN Company, a leading food company in Taiwan, which makes drinks and instant noodles. We then learned that room temperature foods don’t need our product. So we decided to switch our focus to research on cosmetics, nutrients supplements, and medicines. Nevertheless, we also learned that UV will cause the loss of the nutrition in vitamin drinks. It leads us to think of adding another sensor, which is a UV sensor.</p>
  
 
      
 
      
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     <p class="title">Overview</p>
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     <p class="title">Project Description</p>
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     <p class="content">We transplant a modified gene into e-coli, and after drying them up, we put these special e-coli into a specialized sticker made by ourselves, and manufactured a device that can do long-term detection. The sticker monitors the temperature and UV light in the whole transportation process, and will change the color on its outlook. By simply take a glance on it, the customers can directly confirm the condition of the merchandise.(see <a href="https://2017.igem.org/Team:TCFSH_Taiwan/Design" style="color:#44E287;">Design</a> & <a href="https://2017.igem.org/Team:TCFSH_Taiwan/Demonstrate" style="color:#44E287;">Device</a>)</p>
+
     <p class="content">After interviewing VEDAN, we learned that UV light will cause the loss of nutrition of the vitamin drinks. Therefore, we decided to invent a sticker to sense both temperature and UV light. We implant a modified gene into e-coli, and after drying them up, we put these e-coli into a specialized sticker, and this completes our device for long-term quality monitoring. The sticker monitors the temperature and UV light in the whole delivery process, and will change color if it detects excessive amounts of the above two factors. By simply taking a glance at it, the customer can directly confirm the condition of the merchandise.</p>
−
 
+
     <p class="content"> In normal conditions, the color of the sticker will be light green, which indicates “safe.” Nonetheless, if the products are exposed to sunlight or a temperature higher than 37 degrees Celsius, the color will change gradually into red or blue, which indicates “not safe.” The longer the sticker is exposed to these less than ideal conditions, the darker its color will become. The cause of both colors is the synthesis of chromoprotein. Chromoproteins are very stable, which means that the color can last for a long period of time.</p>
−
 
+
    </div>
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    <p class="title">How we design our biobrick</p>
+
−
     <p class="content">First, we try to find a UV promoter, and we’ve found BBa_I765001. However, it just simply doesn’t work in our experiment. So after searching on the Internet, we found a project that Rice university have done. They had found that the protein UirR (K1725420) and UirS (K1725410) can be used as a photo receptor. The UirS protein is anchored in the bacterial membrane where it “sees” the color illuminating the bacterium. If the illumination is UV, UirS activates itself and relays this active state to a messenger protein, UirR. Active UirR is mobile, capable of binding a specific promoter called (PcsiR1), and turning on the expression of the desired gene——RFP (E1010). However, we couldn’t find the promoter sequence of PcsiR1 at first, so we use Plsir (K1725400) instead, but when we eventually found the sequence it is too late for us. So we designed this biobrick:
+
−
Pcon RBS UirR RBS (B0034) UirS Ter Ter (B0015)
+
−
Plsir RBS RFP Ter Ter
+
−
Then, we found a way to measure the temperature, which is using the temperature regulated RBS (BBa_K115001). This RBS only allows ribosomes to bind on it under the temperature of 37 degree Celsius or above. So originally, we decided to put GFP after it, and it would be turned on if it reaches the target temperature. But we then noticed that GFP would produce green light, and green light would cause the protein UirS to change reversely back into inactive state. So we then chose BFP (K592009) instead, and designed this biobrick: Pcon RBSTemp BFP Ter Ter
+
−
Nevertheless, we were afraid that the time under 37 degree Celsius or above is too short for the bacteria to produce enough amount of BFP. So we decide to use an irreversible inhibitor, and then we found the Rhl promoter. When the protein RhlI (K1541017)and RhlR (C0171) both exist, Prhl will continuously work without consuming the proteins, and thus will have enough time to produce BFP. Eventually, we designed this biobrick: Pcon RBS RhlI RBS RhlR Ter Ter + Prhl RBS BFP Ter Ter
+
−
Considering that our products might be damaged, causing the bacteria inside dead, we designed a mechanism to guarantee that our product is able to use. We found that if we put an LVA tag behind the chromoprotein, it will degrade much faster. So our concept is to make the bacteria produce the chromoprotein constantly, and it will be colorful when it is working. Nonetheless, when the bacteria weren’t alive anymore, the remain color will degrade fast and eventually become colorless. At the end, we designed this biobrick: Pcon RBS cj-Blue-lva Ter Ter (note that cj-Blue looks green)
+
−
Lastly, since it would be difficult to transform more than three plasmid into the bacteria, we combined two of them with one of them in the reverse direction (we are afraid of that the gene behind will express poorly), and try to make the sequence as short as possible. So the final biobrick is show as follow.</div>
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Latest revision as of 01:48, 2 November 2017

HOME
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JUDGING FORM

Motivation

A bottle of cold drink is a fantastic idea on a scorching summer day, but what if the drink is contaminated with plasticizers? Many people know that plastic bottles will release harmful plasticizers into the drink at high temperatures, so they sensibly avoid leaving bottled drinks or water in hot places, like their cars. However, what if the drink has been contaminated during transportation from the factory to the retail store?

Besides bottled beverages, many other products, such as cosmetics or medicine, may pose potential threats to human health if they are stored at inadequate temperatures or exposed to sunlight for too long during the delivery process.

The danger is real and immediate, but it is humanly impossible to monitor every delivery procedure. Therefore, we plan to invent a biosensor which can help monitor and ensure the cargo quality in transit.

Background

The popularity of the Internet has been increasing considerably in the 21st century, and purchasing in virtual shops has thus become the mainstream consumer pattern. By investigating through our online questionnaire, we’ve found that at least 95.5% of customers do care about what happens with the items they have ordered during the delivery process. As such, we started to think of a way to ensure that the goods are placed in an optimal and safe environment during the whole process of delivery and transportation.

Our idea was to design a sticker that changes color when exposed to inadequate temperature. The sticker can be attached to the boxes or products right before they are about to get transported, and when the sticker changes color, it means that the environment of the transportation is not adequate and therefore needs to be improved.

Though we were inspired by the release of plasticizer from the bottle into the drinking water, we soon found that there is not much difference between the amount of plasticizer released at 25 degrees Celsius and that released at 35 degrees Celsius (or a bit higher). Thus, we decided to apply our product mainly to foods, especially drinks, as well as cosmetics and medicines. The target temperature we’ve set is 37 degrees Celsius, the temperature at which bacteria reproduce most rapidly.

In order to have a better idea about the proper storage temperature of drinks, we went to interview a few superintendents of VEDAN Company, a leading food company in Taiwan, which makes drinks and instant noodles. We then learned that room temperature foods don’t need our product. So we decided to switch our focus to research on cosmetics, nutrients supplements, and medicines. Nevertheless, we also learned that UV will cause the loss of the nutrition in vitamin drinks. It leads us to think of adding another sensor, which is a UV sensor.

Project Description

After interviewing VEDAN, we learned that UV light will cause the loss of nutrition of the vitamin drinks. Therefore, we decided to invent a sticker to sense both temperature and UV light. We implant a modified gene into e-coli, and after drying them up, we put these e-coli into a specialized sticker, and this completes our device for long-term quality monitoring. The sticker monitors the temperature and UV light in the whole delivery process, and will change color if it detects excessive amounts of the above two factors. By simply taking a glance at it, the customer can directly confirm the condition of the merchandise.

In normal conditions, the color of the sticker will be light green, which indicates “safe.” Nonetheless, if the products are exposed to sunlight or a temperature higher than 37 degrees Celsius, the color will change gradually into red or blue, which indicates “not safe.” The longer the sticker is exposed to these less than ideal conditions, the darker its color will become. The cause of both colors is the synthesis of chromoprotein. Chromoproteins are very stable, which means that the color can last for a long period of time.