Team:Edinburgh OG
Antibiotic revolution: a molecular toolkit to re-sensitise
Methycillin resistant S.aureus (MRSA)
Vancomycin resistant S.aureus (VRSA)
Klebsiella pneumoniae
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Enterococcus faecalis/faecium
Acinetobacter baumanii
Modular molecular toolkit for re-sensitisation of antibiotic-resistant pathogens using CRISPR delivered by a two-phage system.
Read moreABOUT PhagED
The threat posed by antibiotic resistant bacteria is a pressing issue which must be addressed. It is difficult and expensive to develop new antibiotics, so our project is designed to make currently available antibiotics useful again. Our aim is to create a toolkit to re-sensitise pathogens to antibiotics using CRISPR and a two-phage system, based on work by Yosef et al. (2015, doi:10.1073/pnas.1500107112). An engineered lysogenic phage will transfer a CRISPR system to its host bacterium, designed to cleave resistance genes and also confer protection from an engineered lytic phage. When this lytic phage is added to the population, it kills any bacteria that have not been successfully re-sensitised. We chose to target genes found in the highly-resistant ESKAPE pathogens, and worked with 4 different phages - P1, lambda, T4 and T7. Our system was modelled in silico and tested empirically on a specially designed E. coli testing platform.
Figure: Yosef et al., 2015
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK
Project
Get to know PhagED better.
Parts
Blocks of DNA that we've used.
Safety
Safety always comes first.
Human Practices
How does PhagED fit into the context of our lives?
Meet The Team
Filippo Abbondanza
MSc Synthetic Biology & Biotechnology
Developing the lysoenic lambda phage carrying the FnCpf1 CRISPR system.
Erin Corbett
MSc Synthetic Biology & Biotechnology
Engineering E. coli to create our mock pathogen testing platform, and engineering the lytic T7 phage.
Yunqi He
MSc Biochemistry
Developing the lysogenic P1 phage carrying spCas9 CRISPR system.
Ti He
MSc Biotechnology
Developing the lysogenic lambda phage carring saCas9 CRISPR system.
Lydia Mapstone
MSc Synthetic Biology & Biotechnology
Engineering E. coli to create our mock pathogen testing platform and engineering the lytic T4 phage using BRED.
Yuri Matsueda
MSc Biotechnology
Engineering P1 lysogenic phage with CRISPR-SaCas9 system to target resistance gene fragments.
Anton Puzorjov
MSc Bioinformatics
Building a model of bacteria-phage interactions in two-step re-sensitisation combining both lysogenic and lytic phages.
Yating Wang
MSc Drug Discovery & Translational Biology
Engineering P1 lysogenic phage with CRISPR-Cpf1 system to target resistance gene fragments.
Owen Yeung
MSc Synthetic Biology & Biotechnology
Developing the lysoenic lambda phage carrying the SpCas9 CRISPR system.
Supervisors
Dr Elise Cachat
School of Biological Sciences
Academic supervisor.
Dr Heather Barker
School of Biological Sciences
Supervising lab work.
Holly Robertson-Dick
Industrial Liaison
Supervising iGEM administrative work.
Dr John White
School of Chemistry
Supervising phage work.
Dr Filippo Menolascina
School of Bioengineering
Supervising bacteria-phage modelling.
Dr Russell Brown
School of Biological Sciences
Supervising P1 phage construction.
Sponsors
We are very thankful to those who are helping us to make it happen.
DO YOU WANT TO HELP US TURN IT INTO REALITY?
We will be more than happy to accept any kind of support from you either in cash or as free/discounted services or consumables.
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Bronze
£ 500- ✔ Logo on website
- ✔ Recognition on social media
- ✘ Logo on t-shirts
- ✘ Logo on media content
- ✘ Logo on presentation
- ✘ Logo on official poster
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Silver
£ 1,000- ✔ Logo on website
- ✔ Recognition on social media
- ✔ Logo on t-shirts
- ✘ Logo on media content
- ✘ Logo on presentation
- ✘ Logo on official poster
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Gold
£ 2,000- ✔ Logo on website
- ✔ Recognition on social media
- ✔ Logo on t-shirts
- ✔ Logo on media content
- ✔ Logo on presentation
- ✘ Logo on official poster
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Platinum
£ 2,500- ✔ Logo on website
- ✔ Recognition on social media
- ✔ Logo on t-shirts
- ✔ Logo on media content
- ✔ Logo on presentation
- ✔ Logo on official poster
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