IGEM:MIT/2007/Ideas

Ideas to chew on

Some ideas from 4/23/07 meeting

M1. Bacteria with squid reflecting protein (reflectin)

• comments: 2004 science paper

M2. Self mini-prepping bacteria

• comments: once triggered, will lyse, express RNases, and precipitate proteins and genomic DNA

M3. Bacteria with limited lifetime (telomeres)

• comments: kill switches
• streptomyces bacteria have linear genome
• e. coli w/ linear genomes have been constructed

M4. Bacteria with removed/non-functional DNA

• comments: "minicells" will grow for several weeks

M5. Incorporating parts into minicell (but: difficult to produce in large quatities)

• comments:

M6. Magnetic alignment of bacteria

• comments: surface display of peptide which binds magnetic nanoparticles

M7. Bacteria that illuminate when dark

• comments:

M8. Producing vitamins

• comments:

M9. Sensing pH

• comments: idea -- use anthocyanins as pH sensor (expressed in plants such as red cabbage)
• E. Coli have been metabolically engineered to produce anthocyanin reference

M10. Bacteria with kill switch

• comments:

M11. Bacteria battle

• comments:
  • Forrest: Someone mentioned during the 4/23/07 meeting that this could be done in 2-D (on a dish)
  • Forrest: Environmental conditions/stimuli can skew the outcome (e.g. shinning light or lowering pH causes on colony to have advantage over another)

Random ideas from Superphage (Forrest)

F1. Engineering bacteria to operate in extreme environment (extremophiles)

• bacteria that die when not in artificially harsh environments (i.e. bacteria that 'escaped' from lab would not thrive)

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11614-extremeliving-bacteria-has-genome-sequenced.html

• comments:

F2. High protein bacteria/fungus

• Easy to grow, and highly-nutritious
• To be made into bread spread for poor or disaster-striken communities
• comments:

F3. Blood clotting phage/bacteria

• function like Chitosan bandaids

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitosan

• comments:

F4. Bacteria that process animal waste to recover nutrients

• Recover proteins and other substances from pool of farm animal waste (e.g. the edible stuff floats to the top) and add back to animal feed
• comments:

F5. Food spoilage detection

• Add non-harmful bacteria to milk, meat packaging, etc; these bacteria grow slightly more easily that the usual bacteria that make people sick, and are highly visible (e.g. bright purple) when they grow
• If consumer sees purple, if means that the food is possibly spoiled
• comments: