Team:Tsinghua/Applied Design
Product Design
We primarily design our biosensor for AFT detection in hydrophilic phase but not hydrophobic phase, so it can be used to detect AFT in milk and other beverages. When devising the entire product, we especially focus on its safety and convenience, both of which rank high in our survey about customers’ concerns. (For more information about the survey, see the “safe and good” part of human practice)
Basically, our product is a disposable tube with a partition at the top, and a cylinder containing yeast cells fixed on the bottom. The JDYY001 yeast, transfected with constructs of AD-ScFv1, BD-ScFv2 and pGALS-HXT2, and its culture medium, are made into powder and sealed in a cylinder, the walls of which are made of filter membranes that allow solution but not cells to pass through. The cylinder is reinforced and always sealed, and the partition at the top prevents users from touching the cylinder. Thus, we can guarantee that the genetically-modified yeast will not leak into the environment.
Such a tube is designed to culture yeast, labeled with two scale marks: the bottom one denoting the amount of sample liquid the user wants to detect, and the top one denoting the total volume of water that should be added. After mixing them together and completely dissolving the culture medium powder, the user has to use a glucometer to detect the glucose concentration for the first time, whose value is defined as C1. Then the lid of the tube, which allows no leakage, will be closed.
After setting the whole culture system in room temperature for several hours, the glucose concentration can be measure for a second time, and this concentration is defined as C2. The value of C2-C1 has to be calculated and we will provide a guidebook to tell users with the subtraction result in what range is the detected product safe.
Till now, users can get the result that whether the liquid product is safe. However, our detection process is not finished yet. Users also need to know how to throw our system away. The user has to throw the liquid in it like domestic garbage and add household 75% alcohol to at least submerge the lower part of the tube. The lid will be closed and the whole system has to be set overnight at room temperature. Then all the components can be thrown away normally.
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