Team:Botchan Lab Tokyo/Team

1.Member

Students

Name : Minami Nakayama
Role in iGEM : Leader,
Interlab member, Public
relations coordinator

Name : Ayumi Taga
Role in iGEM : Sub leader,
Interlab member

Name : Misaki Tanabe
Role in iGEM : Lab member

Name : Chiharu Ishikawa
Role in iGEM : Human Practices,
Interlab member

Name : Rino Homma
Role in iGEM : Public relations
coordinator, Interlab member,
Design member

Name : Kohei Homma
Role in iGEM : Financial officer,
Sponsership, modeling

Name : Chihiro Hiruma
Role in iGEM : Sponsership,
Financial officer

Name : Takumi Kasahara
Role in iGEM : Lab member

Name : Yuki Kawanishi
Role in iGEM : Lab member

Name : Takumi Ito
Role in iGEM : Lab member,
Wiki web designer

Name : Taiki Funahashi
Role in iGEM : Financial officer,
Sponsership, Lab member

Advisors

Name : Kengo Morohashi
'Systems Biology'

Name : Toshiki Furuya
'Applied Biology'

Name : Kazuyuki Kuchitsu
'Plant cell, Molecular
& Systems Biology'

Name : Kazuya Nakata
'Biomaterials'

Name : Koji Kuramochi
'Bioorganic Chemistry'

 

2.Safety

<Our Project>

What will your project work?
-It will be engineered to do nitrogen fixation and convert nitrogen gas into ammonia and eventually amino acids. We will make this mechanism in Escherichia coli.

Please describe any other organisms besides your host cell you will use ?
-We will use E. coli JM109 for our host cell. We are going to put nifBHDKENX-hesA from Paenibacillus polymyxa, and nifVSU from Rahnella aqatilis to synthesize nitrogenase for nitrogen fixation. We also introduce phenylalanine dehydrogenase genes from Bacillus badius, and glutamate dehydrogenase genes from Bacillus licheniformis for the synthesis of amino acids. These three organisms are Risk Group 1 organisms.


*Source Link
Paenibacillus polymyxa : https://www.atcc.org/products/all/15970.aspx
Rahnella aqatilis : https://www.atcc.org/Products/All/33071.aspx
Bacillus badius : https://www.atcc.org/Products/All/15574-MINI-PACK.aspx
Bacillus licheniformis : https://www.atcc.org/Products/All/15580.aspx

How would your project be used in the real world?
-We want our project to be developed in nutrition field as using engineered bacteria as supplements. By introducing them into people's intestine in the future, we think that we can really contribute to the solution of protein shortage.


<Our Lab Work>

What is the Safety Level of your Lab ?
-We work in Level 1 Labs and we use only Risk Group 1 organisms.

What is the measure you have taken to reduce risk during the experiment?
*Do not eat, drink and smoke in laboratories.
*Wear lab coats inside the laboratories.
*Do not bring in things from the outside as much as possible.
*Open containers with bacteria and handle them inside the clean bench.
*Wash hands before and after experiment.

What safety training have you received?
-We have been taken safety trainings, such as lab access and rules by our PIs. We learned about biosafety levels, disinfection and sterilization, emergency procedures and transport rules in the genetic recombination experiment lecture at the university.

 

3.About TUS

The place of our campus

Tokyo University of Science (TUS) has four campuses.(Figure 1)

Our campus is in Noda. Noda is very rich in nature and you can enjoy the changing seasons.(Figure 2)

 

 

Faculties of TUS

TUS has six faculties of sciences.
There are two faculties at Noda campus.


About Botchan

Official image characters "Botchan" and "Madonna chan" are enacted in commemoration of 125th anniversary of foundation. This is due to the characters appeared in Soseki Natsume's novel "Botchan".(figure 3)

Our group name was born from here.