Team:ColumbiaNYC/Brainstorm

Brainstorming

Here are some other ideas that we came up with this summer that future iGEM teams can incorporate into their own projects.

Nav1.7 is a voltage-gated sodium channel expressed on nociceptive neurons, neurons responsible for transmitting pain signals from the PNS to the CNS. Nav1.7 is essential for normal pain sensation; if it is not expressed, the patient will not feel pain at all, and if it is overexpressed, the patient will experience chronic pain (20% of the population worldwide). Nav1.7 is therefore a prime therapeutic target whose blockage by an T-cell antibody would mitigate pain, with the T cell acting as a potential analgesic. A circuit would be designed so that once the T cell binds to the epitope, a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) could be engineered to be drug-switchable so that the T cells are controllable, which is not currently the case. This way, a physician could titrate cell activity and control timing with a drug, which is potentially safer.
There are products (such as polymer based gels) that rapidly stops blood loss However, they require physical application to the wound, meaning that they would not be able to stop internal bleeding and would not be practical to chronic or potentially-widespread bleeding such as hemophilia. Our cells would receive either a physical or chemical signal in response to a blood vessel being broken changing the extracellular pressure or releasing tissue factors through the extrinsic coagulation pathway, respectively. This would either induce a promoter, resulting in either a positive transcription loop or activation of an allosteric modulatory switch. The circuit would output cofactor 10a (FXa), the catalyst for the coagulation pathway. The system would be tested in cell culture and murine models. Tissue Factor is released by the ruptured walls 1 Factor 10a (Xa) molecule can catalyze the formation of 1000 thrombin molecules
Many physiologists and neuroscientists use optical methods to measure cell behavior 1)multiple portions of the sample could be monitored simultaneously, representing interactions between different cell species with different cellular functions 2)measurements can be made real-time 3)measurements can be relatively non-invasive. Current methods involve extrinsic dyes or proteins that can cause photodynamic damage to the cells. Our pathway would receive a (neuro)chemical signal from a neighboring cell which would set off a signaling cascade that ultimately excites a fluorescent protein. CRISPR? The half life would have to be short and the circuit regulation cascading because both are fast and transient enough to allow for the next excitation by the next action potential. https://www.wired.com/2014/07/neuron-zebrafish-movie/
Most collagen products used for biomaterials or biomedical devices are extracted from animal sources. However, application of animal collagen carries the risk of pathogen or prion contamination and the possibility of causing allergies. Other problems include the lack of standardization for animal collagen extraction processes and the inability to modify collagen sequences to achieve different biological purposes. Compared with collagens extracted from animal tissues, recombinant collagens are highly pure, disease free, consistent among batches, and amendable to sequence modifications and large scale production. Such recombinant collagen can be made by bacteria, allowing for the use of versatile and cheap collagen.