NYMU_TAIPEI

We have continued and strengthened our long-standing partnership with National Yang Ming University (NYMU_Taipei). They troubleshooted our cloning procedure and design of primers, gave us protocols for assaying biofilm production, and trained our future iGEMers (Leona and Catherine).

In return, we helped add to the characterization of their lactose-induced suicide mechanism: the Holin-Endolysin-NrtA system (BBa_K2350021). We measured the population of their kill-switch bacteria in different lactose concentrations, and find that our results are consistent with their findings.

Additionally, this year two members from TAS (Catherine and Leona) are members on both NYMU and TAS teams. They learned the cloning cycle from TAS and helped run experiments and human practices for NYMU throughout the year. In Boston, they will also help NYMU present their project at the Giant Jamboree.

CGU_Taiwan

We first met the CGU_Taiwan team at the end of our presentation for the Asia Pacific iGEM Conference hosted at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU).

They were excited that our biofilms were able to trap nanoparticles, and wondered if they could trap ink particles as well. CGU_Taiwan is working on improving the procedure to manufacture reprocessed paper. They found that a process called “flotation,” typically used to de-ink paper, could cause significant paper fiber loss. They wondered if biofilm could potentially replace the current flotation process to preserve paper fibers. We offered to test this for CGU_Taiwan. We used a similar experimental procedure as our preliminary biofilm trapping experiment. The results suggest that our biofilm can trap ink particles. As shown below, the relative absorbance of ink decreased by approximately 50% when mixed with biofilm.

In return, CGU_Taiwan helped us independently verify that overexpression of OmpR234 (BBa_K2229200) produces more biofilms than control (BBa_K342003).