Team:Bielefeld-CeBiTec/Achievements

Achievements

Awards

Best Integrated Human Practices

Best Education and Public Engagement

Best Measurement

Best Modeling

Best Basic Part

Best Software Tool

Best Hardware

Integrated Human Practices

Throughout our project we got advice and support by over thirty experts that influenced our work very much. We organized a conference about the expansion of the genetic code and wrote a report about the chances and implications of an expanded genetic code. See all the human practices we integrated into our project here.

Improve a previous part or project

We improved the validation system for aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases for ncAAs from Austin Texas 2014 (BBa_K1416004
) and Aachen 2016 (BBa_K2020040) with a FRET system (BBa_K2201343) and used it in our project. You can find our Part Improvement site here.

Model your project

We modeled some protein sequences for our synthetases to incorporate the new noncanonical amino acid CBT-asparagine and 2-nitrophenylalanine.

Demonstrate your work

We were able to integrate and detect the unnatural bases in the DNA sequences by software modification of nanopore sequencing. We also expanded the genetic code by providing a toolkit of some evolved synthetases. These are able to incorporate noncanonical amino acids into any kind of protein and proof their functionality.

Validated Part / Validated Contribution

In our project we used and created a lot of different parts. We are especially proud of our part XX that worked just as expected and was well characterized and validated by us.

Collaboration

Throughout our project we collaborated with many iGEM Teams to improve our work and help other. Especially our mentoring of the new iGEM team Unifi and the exchange of some parts with the CU Bolder team was very important for us.

Human Practices

During the last months we had a lot of interactions with the public trying to convey the aspects of our work and project. For example we worked with pupils at the GENIALE or our yearly pupil’s academy and organized a literature workshop about synthetic biology. We had appearances at the radio, created a little biotechnology quiz show for a student initiative and even wrote a biosafety report. All our human practices are collected here.

Register and attend

We registered for the competition in March and are proud to be able to attend the Giant Jamboree. We will without doubt have a lot of fun!

Deliverables

We have met all the required deliverables as you can see in our team wiki, our project attribution, our team poster, our presentation on the XX, our safety and judging forms, our part page and our submitted samples.

Attribution

We created an Attribution site where we listed and thanked all the people who supported us with advice and material throughout our project. If not mentioned specificially we have done the work ourselfs and the results are due to our own work.

Characterization / Contribution

Establishment of two orthogonal methods for the detection of unnatural base pairs in a target sequence via Oxford Nanopore sequencing and an enzyme based detection method

Achievements

Development of a software suite for these orthogonal methods

Integration and characterization of the nucleotide transporter PtNTT2 from P.tricornutum in E.coli for the uptake of unnatural nucleoside triphosphates

Proof that certain Taq-polymerases can efficiently incorporate unnatural nucleotides

Construction of a toolkit consisting of five aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases for incorporation of non-canonical amino acids

Development of a photoswitchable lycopene pathway

Design and chemical synthesis of a novel, fully synthetic amino acid based on cyanonitrobenzothiazol and asparagine and proof of its functionality

Modeling more than ten new aaRS sequences

Library development with several thousand sequences for selecting aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases

Construction of positive and negative selection plasmids for the evolution of new synthetases for non-canonical amino acids

Improvement of an aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase test-system by introducing a FRET-system and development of a ranking system

Construction of an LED panel for irradiating 96-well microtiter plates, which can be used to manipulate non-canonical amino acids and much more

Development of an Android App to control the LED panel with your smartphone via Bluetooth

Writing of a biosafety report titled “Auxotrophy to Xeno-DNA: A Comprehensive Exploration of Combinatorial Mechanisms for a High-Fidelity Biosafety System”

Writing of the ChImp Report on the “Chances and Implications of an Expanded Genetic Code”