In our first time ever participating in iGEM, our project was to develop a new treatment for type 1 diabetes mellitus. We wanted to engineer a Lactococcus lactis strain to live in the human gut and produce an insulin analog that can be absorbed by the intestinal epithelium. The number of patients and deaths due to type 1 diabetes is increasing every year and we want to make those people’s life better: no more several insulin injections in a single day! Our engineered L. lactis will produce a single-chain insulin analog associated with cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) that facilitates the uptake of insulin by the intestinal epithelium and its production will be regulated by the glucose concentration. Besides that, we designed a kill switch inducible by light to contain its release to the envioronment.
Navigate through our wiki to learn more about our project!
