IGEM:Caltech/2007: Difference between revisions
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==<center>Our Project</center>== | |||
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The Caltech iGEM 2007 team is composed of four undergraduates from Caltech and one undergraduate from MIT. Team members are current juniors and seniors in biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, and biological engineering. The team was advised by three graduate students and three faculty mentors. | [[Image:Caltech_igem_2007.jpg|right|250px]]The Caltech iGEM 2007 team is composed of four undergraduates from Caltech and one undergraduate from MIT. Team members are current juniors and seniors in biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, and biological engineering. The team was advised by three graduate students and three faculty mentors. | ||
Our project tries to answer the following question: can viruses be engineered to selectively kill and/or integrate into specific subpopulations of target cells, based on their RNA or protein expression profiles? This addresses an important issue in gene therapy, where viruses engineered for fine target discrimination would selectively kill only those cells over or underexpressing certain disease or cancer associated genes. An even more ambitious goal would be to <i>rewire</i> target cells, by integrating a small gene cassette which would modify the target cell's expression profile, possibly fixing a disease state. | Our project tries to answer the following question: can viruses be engineered to selectively kill and/or integrate into specific subpopulations of target cells, based on their RNA or protein expression profiles? This addresses an important issue in gene therapy, where viruses engineered for fine target discrimination would selectively kill only those cells over or underexpressing certain disease or cancer associated genes. An even more ambitious goal would be to <i>rewire</i> target cells, by integrating a small gene cassette which would modify the target cell's expression profile, possibly fixing a disease state. | ||
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Choosing an appropriate λ strain poses a challenge. Existing strains with defective <i>N, Q,</i> and <i>cro</i> genes lack unique restriction sites to clone our constructs into. Therefore, we will utilize recombineering to introduce introduce these mutations into phages specifically designed to accept cloning inserts. | Choosing an appropriate λ strain poses a challenge. Existing strains with defective <i>N, Q,</i> and <i>cro</i> genes lack unique restriction sites to clone our constructs into. Therefore, we will utilize recombineering to introduce introduce these mutations into phages specifically designed to accept cloning inserts. | ||
[[Image:Caltech_2007_overview.gif|center]] | |||
==<center>About iGEM</center>== | |||
Synthetic biology implies the modification of existing biological pathways or construction of new systems to perform useful tasks, as well as the development of foundational technologies to allow for the more reliable design of biological systems. Many major problems in the field stem from the perceived unreliable and variable nature of complex biological systems. Most biological systems exhibit inherent variations in system behavior. These variations, along with the current lack of understanding around organizing principles in biological systems, limit the ability to engineer reliable biological systems. If foundational technologies can be developed that allow for standardization, decoupling, and abstraction, synthetic biology will expand to an engineering discipline that will advance applications in many fields. If successful, engineers could design and construct new systems in relatively short periods of time using well-characterized parts (Endy 2005). | |||
The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition involves the design and implementation of a synthetic biological system. Construction requires modifying existing components and combining a library of known parts in new ways to construct a novel system. The project has two goals: firstly to create an interesting device for iGEM, and secondly to determine the viability of using standardized parts. The Caltech iGEM project focuses on using the viral lysis/lysogeny switch to have viruses kill selective host cells, with the viral decision resting on whether the host produces a correct riboregulator key. | |||
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Revision as of 10:17, 26 October 2007
The Caltech iGEM 2007 team is composed of four undergraduates from Caltech and one undergraduate from MIT. Team members are current juniors and seniors in biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, and biological engineering. The team was advised by three graduate students and three faculty mentors.
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