Difference between revisions of "Template:Team:Utrecht/MainBody"

Through our whole iGEM experience, they follow us from lab bench to Boston.

› Human Practices - Application

› Funding & Sponsoring

<div class="team-bio">

<li /><a href="">Team wiki</a>

<li /><a href="">Project attribution</a>

<li /><a href="">Team poster</a>

<li /><a href="">Team presentation</a>

<li /><a href="">Safety forms</a>

<li /><a href="">Judging form</a>

<li /><a href="">Registry part pages</a>

<li /><a href="">Sample submission</a>

<li /><a href="">Project attribution</a>

<li /><a href="">Contribution to InterLab Study</a>

Furthermore, we contributed a postcard design to the Düsseldorf Cologne postcards campaign. Although these are not, strictly speaking, collaborations, we have attended several meet-ups with Dutch and other European iGEM teams to exchange ideas. An overview of our collaboration efforts can be found on the Collaborations page (> Links to [Collaborations page]).

Our team has contacted professionals from many different backgrounds to find the setting wherein the OUTCASST system would be of most use and to identify where the requirements of the intended application affect the design of our tool. Through a series of interviews with several experts, we came to the conclusion that our tool would be most useful in diagnostics and pathogen detection in particular. By talking to a representative from ‘Doctors without borders’ and a parasitology expert, we discovered that Chagas disease is a neglected tropical disease with a large impact, yet a good diagnostic tool for this disease is still missing. Therefore, we chose to focus on Chagas disease in the further design of our tool. (> Links to [Human Practices] [End User])

Besides the interviews to find the focus of our project, we also worked on outreach. In collaboration with ‘De Kennis van Nu’, a Dutch platform that brings different scientific themes to the general public, we made videos and wrote blogs about synthetic biology, the iGEM competition, lab safety, tropical diseases and our project. To raise more awareness for the competition and our project within our university, we wrote articles in several student magazines. (> Links to [Human Practices] [Outreach])  

We incorporated the feedback we got from various professionals into the design of our final product. Not only did the information we gained make us choose for Chagas disease as the focus of our project, it also made us think about the way our system could be used on location. Through our conversations with specialists, we realized the importance of simplicity in use and resistance to varying temperatures and humidity. Only tools which take these factors into account can be used without a need for further lab equipment or trained personnel. Furthermore, with safety considerations in mind, we designed our device to keep our system separated from the outside world, making it impossible for the GMO’s to escape into the environment. (> Link to [Human Practices][Design])

At the same time, our team worked on modeling our system. They first summarized the kinetics of our fusion proteins in a network of reactions. With this reaction network, we demonstrated that the system contains negative feedback on its own sensitivity and give some suggestions on how to alleviate that problem with additional bio-circuitry components. In addition, we show that the precision of the system may be increased by usage of a weaker protease. We subsequently used ODE reaction equations to test if differences in substrate affinity or protein production rates can alleviate sensitivity problems and if so, how.

The Utrecht iGEM team performed most of the experiments, funding, PR and human practices on their own. All additional help is acknowledged here:

<tr><td><a target=_BLANK href="http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K23510011" class="url_external">BBa_K23510011</a></td><td>dCpf1</td><td>DNA and gRNA binding properties are maintained but no endonuclease activity is exhibited.</td></tr>

<tr><td><a target=_BLANK href="http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K23510012" class="url_external">BBa_K23510012</a></td><td>sCpf1</td><td>Phytobrick* // Cpf1 that will be secreted from humane cells.</td></tr>

<tr><td><a target=_BLANK href="http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K23510013" class="url_external">BBa_K23510013</a></td><td>dCpf1</td><td>Phytobrick*// DNA and gRNA binding properties are maintained but no endonuclease activity is exhibited.</td></tr>

<tr><td><a target=_BLANK href="http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K23510014" class="url_external">BBa_K23510014</a></td><td>sCas9</td><td>Phytobrick* // Cas9 that will be secreted from humane cells.</td></tr>

<tr><td><a target=_BLANK href="http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K23510010" class="url_external">BBa_K23510010</a></td><td>sCpf1</td><td>Cpf1 that will be secreted from humane cells.</td></tr>

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