Team:USTC/Achievements
Bronze
| Number | Explanation | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Register and attend | We tried our best to realize our project during the summer holiday with great enthusiasm. We also come to attend the Giant Jamboree, sharing our project and learning from other teams great ideas! |
| 2 | Deliverables | We have filled out all the forms and pages that are required carefully. Also, we prepared our poster and presentation to better show you guys about our project. |
| 3 | Attribution | We have create a page(here is the link: https://2017.igem.org/Team:USTC/Attributions ) for attributions. We sincerely thanks those professors that had given so much support to us. |
| 4 | Characterization / Contribution | We improved the characterization of a part encoding the cysteine desulfhydrase(BBa_K731400). We found out a new function of the part, to generate sulfur ions from cysteine to precipitate the cadmium ions. In another word, this protein can increase the bacteria's resistance to a certain concentration of cadmium ions and solve the pollution of cadmium ions. This year, we used a part encoding the ccm A-H(BBa_K1316011) to mature Mtr CAB, which belongs to the family of cytochrome c. In our project, we improve the characterization of this part about its function to mature cytochrome c, especially about the effect it can make. With heme staining, we can safely conclude that this part has the expected function. |
Silver
| Number | Explanation | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Validated Part / Validated Contribution | This year, we use a reductase called Alcohol Dehydrogenase from Kluyveromyces marxianus and submit it as new part, BBa_K2242626. In the result section in our wiki, you can see that this enzyme has strong enzyme activity, which can catalyze the bio-transformation from ethanal to ethanol. |
| 2 | Collaboration | We help the team HFUT-China to solve some biological problems and help them to validate their software, building a better platform or forum for iGEMers to communicate, especially about the parts and help USTC-software to optimize their applications. In addition, we help the team NPU-China for their modeling. We help them to simulate the bio-network to decide how strong promoter they should use for their enzymes' expression. Moreover, we also get help from team ShanghaiTech who provided us CdS quantum dots to validate our system. In turn, we help to improve the characterization of the CdS quantum dots for them. Last but not least, we attended the CCiC and The 5th iGEM Asia-Parcific Conference to communicate with other iGEM teams! |
| 3 | Human Practices | To ensure the effectiveness and practicability of our project, we visited local pharmaceutical company to learn more about their needs in biological synthesis; referred to lots of previous work to find out current limits of microbes in MES and got inspiration; consulted Prof. Liu Haiyan and Vice Prof. Hong Jiong in project design and safety control; consulted Prof. Yu Hanqing’s team in current development and potentials in biological cathode and collaborated with his lab in functioning test of PELICAN; organized various activities for the public on Science Open day and in Hefei Science Museum, presented PELICAN and collected ideas and opinions from the citizens; actively communicated our projects and ideas with iGEMers all over the world in Asia-Pacific iGEM Conference and Central China iGEM Consortium; designed and executed measures for handling Cadmium ion and possible production of hepatic gas to ensure safety and avoid negative impacts on the environment. |
Gold
| Number | Explanation | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Integrated Human Practices | We studied to lots of previous works in biological cathode, found out current limits of microbes in MES and got inspiration from the work of Prof. Yang Peidong and other researchers; visited a pharmaceutical company, learned more about their needs in biological synthesis and absorbed advice on project design to better serve the needs of industrial production. Specially, we introduce the Ccm A-H protein complex to allow the maturation of Mtr CAB under aerobic condition, which save a lot of trouble and time for industries and increase efficiency. |
| 2 | Improve a previous part or project | We improve a part encoding the Mtr CAB proteins (BBa_K1316012). In other iGEM teams, they only used Mtr CAB to transfer cytoplasm electrons to the outer space. But we improve its function, proving that this Mtr CAB can transfer extracellular electrons back into the cytoplasm. It means that Mtr CAB can transfer electrons bidirectionally. This is a great improvement for Mtr CAB’s function! Besides, we also add a His-tag and two restriction sites( Xho1 and Nde1 ) to the sequence for easier cloning. |
| 3 | Model your project | We built several models in our project to demonstrate and simulate different aspects and process of our system. Furthermore, we can use it to guide our experiments' design and predict our experiments' results.
Firstly, we built a DLA model by fundamental physics laws to demonstrate the crystallization process of the semi-conductor on the membrane of E.coli. And we used quantum mechanics rules to prove the feasibility of our design and calculated the efficiency of our photo-electron transform happened in our system. Secondly, we successfully simulated the electron flux between cathode and cytoplasm with Markov process and electric circuit. Both of these two models successfully predicted our experiment results. In the end, we built an universal platform to simulate the expression process of any protein regulated by quorum sensing(QS) system, which is widely used in synthetic biology. By using basic biochemical reaction rate laws, we simulated the expression process of any protein based on its property, and helped us to choose the proper concentration of inducer. |
| 4 | Demonstrate your work | In the result section, we have proved the three systems in our project can function as we expected separately! In another word, it can be safely concluded that our project work! |
