IGEM:Imperial/2010/Detection of contaminants and pathogens

Introduction

At the moment we plan to couple our "rapid response" system to a detection system for water contaminants or pathogens, especially parasites. For this we have been doing a literature research for bacteria that are able to sense and/or interact with common parasites of humans.

Salmonella and Schistosoma

A number of papers from around 1970-1985 point out the association of Salmonella with Schistosoma parasites in patients. There is evidence that special type 1 pili are involved in this interaction that is thought to help Salmonella reproduce by providing a reproduction focus and evade the host immune system. So far we have not been able to learn about the exact molecular mechanism behind this interaction so we have still to demonstrate that exploiting this system for parasite detection is feasible.