IGEM:Stanford/2009/Meetings/2/4/09
Meeting Info
- When: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 from 7:30 to 9
- Where: Y2E2 Rm 105
- Leaders: Ming
- Secretary: Mark
Ideas for Meeting
- 5x5 presentations
5x5 Presentation Topics
- Suzie - Steven Artandi
sartandi@stanford.edu
Stanford School of Medicine- Hematology
Member of Bio-X and the Cancer Center
Telomeres, TERT, Stem Cells, and Cancer
"Telomere uncapping in progenitor cells with critical telomere shortening is coupled to S-phase progression in vivo"
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/45/17747
Telomeres (10 min) - Anusuya Carbon sequestration(10 min) -
- Ariana Unnatural amino acids [A chemical toolkit for proteins — an expanded genetic code]
(10 min) -
- Robert Virus engineering (10 min) - Engineered Virus Targets Brain Tumors
- Joseph Unnatural amino acids (10 min) -
Agenda
Notes
Announcements: Friday 6 pm iGEM dinner near Red Mango Krung Siam - meet at Toyon if you want to bike
To do: If haven’t done so, meet with grad student Make account on Open Wet Ware
Presentations: Joe – Bioluminescence Oxidation of luciferin by luciferinase Cold light – little/no heat released Use luciferin because genes can be inserted into organisms Applications: whole animal imaging; splice gene into specific cell types Crazy: plants synth ATP; use that ATP for luminescence – city lighting, night lights, etc. Practical: modify bacteria to monitor chemical levels: bioluminescent bacteria modified to be selective towards certain chemicals Prosaic: use to track pests, non-native invasive species Q: how to make it stop glowing? A: organisms with luciferin glow on a Circadian rhythm
Robert – Engineering Viruses The Problem: Cancers -> brain tumors, current therapy is costly and not effective Solution: The brain is isolated from the immune system (blood brain barrier); vector will be safe from immune system? Bacterial vectors less robust than viral vectors 5 subprojects: 1. target brain tumors 2. regulate virus (when in dormant vs. lytic stages) 3. delivery mechanism 4. selectable marker to track virus and treatment progress 5. open Nghi: tag tumor cells with bioluminescence as selectable marker, since tumor cells horde resources and therefore may be better at taking up bioluminescent gene; decrease in luminescence can be signal of effectiveness
Suzie – working with telomeres and cell viability Telomeres serve as caps to chromosomes and promote cell/chromosomal viability They shorten with every cell division Telomerase – reverse transcriptase that synth telomere repeats Known: stem cells and other self-renewing tissue cells express telomerase Telomerase downregulated with differentiation, but upregulated in cancer cells When too short, uncapped conformation, activate apoptosis Problems: regulation changes throughout cell cycle Crazy: enzyme cut off telomeres with sticky ends, use virus to deliver these sticky pieces into target cell and add on to chromosomes Practical: increase length of telomeres in bacteria commonly used in engineering, making these subjects easier to work with and more robust
Anusuya – carbon sequestration Basics of cement production: combine raw materials (bauxite, minerals, binding material) to create clinker pulp. Heat to high temperatures to finish clinker. Environmental problems: two reactions to create cement: calcining of limestone to lime and carbon dioxide, formations of calcium silicates and side products (i.e. flue gas) Treatment of flue gas: scrubbers that have catalysts that bind to pollutants such as nitrogen oxides. Solution: carbon sequestration – use carbonic anhydrase to bind carbon dioxide to form carbonic acid. Can we take this enzyme and transplant it into nonliving systems? Stanford’s Calera Crazy: inducing E. coli to express carbonic anhydrase and place bacteria in cement as it is being made
Ariana – Expanding the Metabolic Repertoire with Unnatural Amino Acids Goal: to bioengineer a metabolic pathway in cells that enables them to incorporate unnatural amino acids into their proteome; efficiency, fidelity, and autonomy are desired. Requisites: unique tRNA: codon pair, corresponding aminoacyl-tRNA syntehtase, significant intracellular conc. of unnatural amino acid Considerations: specificity: must be entirely orthogonal (won’t get confused), stability of each factor, functional, efficient
Brainstorm session Do yeasts have viruses? Bioluminescent palm-trees? Biolight – bioluminescent light bulbs Quorum sensing; when bacteria come together, then they glow -Polka dots -CAM plants have genes that are sensitive to light? Link activation of genes to other functional genes
Answers?
- Do yeast have viruses? - Yeast do have viruses. Here is one example.
- Quorum Sensing