Team:Hong Kong HKU
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Project Description
With the advent of DNA nanotechnology, the age old "DNA is the genetic blueprint of living beings" has expanded greatly with our increasing understanding about the physical and chemical properties of DNA. Establishing its basis through "Holiday Junction" and DNA origami such as of "Smiley Face", DNA nanotechnology has made its way as one of the most advanced and sought-after branches of synthetic biology.
With the recent advances in DNA nanotechnology, scientists have made one success story after another to apply DNA nanodevices like three dimensional DNA structures in clinical diagnosis, environmental and nutritional fields. However, all of these structures have so far been done in vitro, where the structures are functional only outside living cells.
Therefore, HKU iGEM Team 2017 will continue to focus on HKU's strengths in the field of DNA nanotechnology and will be aiming to delve into this field, taking it further by aiming to produce a three dimensional nuclei acid-detecting structure in vivo that can be expressed directly in the living cell. Our goal is to design a DNA structure and try to express it in E. coli where the structure will be used to detect nucleic acid markers which may have prospective applications in aspects such as disease diagnosis, environmental fields, etc. We will make use of Watson-Crick base pairings, aptamers and G-quadruplex sequences to achieve our goal.
All in all, we are opting our best to create something new through iGEM in the world of synthetic biology to contribute to its advancement.
