Team:Groningen
Welcome!
This is the official page of #teamGroningen for the competition of iGem 2017. You want to know more? Check out our awesome project!
Our Project
In the Netherlands, export of dairy products, such as cheese, buttermilk, and yogurt, generates a combined yearly income of billions of euros with the Netherlands responsible for 5% of the world’s dairy products trade1. However, the industry is plagued by the very nature of its required processes. The bacteria used for the fabrication of these commodities are severely susceptible to viral infections, which can disrupt many production lines of the product that are a matter of national pride2. The iGEM (international Genetically Engineered Machine) Groningen team is determined to improve the current quality control standard practices by developing an improved system for the detection of phage infections. By implementation of our system, the Groningen iGEM team hopes to contribute to the on-going attempt to safeguard the production and export of our world famous dairy products. The goal of the Groningen iGEM 2017 project is to design a system that can be used to survey for multiple pre-programmed nucleotide sequences together with a convenient readout. To do so, a CRISPR-based detection system will be developed that will be utilized to detect bacteriophages, bacterial viruses that are common spoilers of dairy fermentation processes. This system will rely on a modified version the “adaptive immune system” of bacteria, CRISPR-Cas, which naturally protects them from invading DNA from viruses. Various readout modules will be implemented to allow for proactive, quick and cheap screening of high-risk bacteriophage infections in the industrial pipeline. To cover the costs of this project we rely on sponsoring of companies. We think that this project is worthy of the Genscript grant because of our shared interest in expanding the Cas9 based genome editing tools in the bio-brick database and further characterizing them. In addition, to adapt our system to recognize specific phage sequences, we will use your excellent services to custom synthesis phage homologous sequences in the reporter plasmid. If successful, our system will demonstrate the value of your services without which our project would not be possible and it would potentially increase the demand if adopted by others.
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