Team:UCLouvain/Team
It is very simple to describe … “Work, Learn and have Fun” is our motto. This represents quite well our crazy team. Since the beginning we are creating a great atmosphere between us. Our agenda is full of iGEM activities!! Road trip to Wageningen for the iGEM Benelux meeting, team working each week to meet us and share about the project, presentation of our adventure during a conference, etc… Though we come from various faculties, we see skills differences as a real added value and all of us have something to say around the table. Responsibilities have been allocated according to our expertise and preferences but jokes duty is exclusively for Marine.
So, we do not need to say a lot but only: “It is a great experience with great people”.
Our objective is to design a biobadge detecting excessive UV exposure and therefore warning us to seek sun protection should it become necessary. This badge would work as a capsule holding E. coli cells, changing colours as the UV intensity increases. Therefore, we investigated two approaches using photocaged tyrosine (o-nitrobenzyl tyrosine). In both cases, UV-rays will release the tyrosine and enhance a reporter signal. (1) Starting with a tyrosine auxotroph E. coli strain, a reporter RFP will be synthetized once tyrosine is liberated from its cage. (2) Using a photocaged peptide and a specific transcription factor called ComR, we also aim at UV-controlling the expression of the reporter gene. The capsule would also work as a safe and reliable containment, destroying the engineered microorganisms once the biobadge is discarded.
On top of that, we are all studying at the Université catholique de Louvain.
learn morePatrice Soumillion is teaching biochemistry and enzymology at the Université catholique de Louvain. He is a specialist in the functioning and evolution of enzymes. His research team is part of the group of biochemistry, biophysics and genetics of microorganisms at the Life Sciences Institute. With his help and expertise, he follows us all along our scientific adventure and he gives us valuable advice.
Charles Hachez is teaching at the Faculty of Sciences of the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He is specifically interested in the molecular genetic structure ruling the development of glandular trichomes tractable in the leaf epidermis of Nicotiana tabacum. He will accompany our team during the Giant Jamboree in Boston.
Bernard Hallet is also a professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He conducts research on the molecular system that mediate specialized DNA rearrangements in bacteria. As Prof. Hachez and Prof. Soumillion, he has been an important actor in our project. Thanks to his support and knowledge, we are succeeding in developing BactaSun
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