Team:METU Turkey/Team

The Team
{|align="justify" We would like to thank research assistants Tahir Bayrac, Tufan Oz and Serkan Tuna without whom our project would not work. As a team, besides participating in the Jamboree, one of our main aims is to increase the awareness towards Synthetic Biology in Turkey. For this, we would also like to thank our sponsors TUBITAK and METIS for their support.
 * METU_Turkey team was established by the four undergraduate students a year ago with their own sole efforts. Then size of the team was increased to six. To represent METU in the forthcoming competition our team was established in February,2008. We greatly appreciate former pariticipants of IGEM competition Koray, Milas,Sinem for their efforts in establishment of our team, for their support in the whole project and for their assistance in the administrative problems that we have faced so far. Our current team is composed of sixteen undergraduate students majoring in Molecular Biology and Genetics and Biology. Being member of this large team we are enjoying to have several advantages over other team. Apart from having strong potential to create astounding project, we are learning how to act within the group and how to act as a team.

The Project
Light controlled heavy metal carrying E. coli machine

Heavy metals are natural components of the Earth's crust. They cannot be degraded or destroyed. To a small extent they enter our bodies via food, drinking water and air. As trace elements, some heavy metals (e.g. copper, selenium, zinc) are essential to maintain the metabolism of the human body. However, at higher concentrations they can lead to poisoning. Heavy metal poisoning could result, for instance, from drinking-water contamination (e.g. lead pipes), high ambient air concentrations near emission sources, or intake via the food chain.

We designed a E.coli machine to control heavy metal concentration in water  by using phototaxis induced tunable carrying system on E.coli membrane. In our system, there are two light sources. One of them is for the metal source and another is for the destination to where we want to carry metal atoms. And our machines have phototaxis ability. In addition to this, they have metal binding domain in outer surface and bacteriorhodopsin. When we open light at the metal source, they start to move toward source and catch the metal atoms. Then we open the light at the destination while closing the light at the source. So our machines move toward the destination. After the arrival our machines will be exposed to light with specific wavelength to activate bacteriorhodopsin leading to small local pH changing at the outer surface. This pH changing causes the release of metal atoms from the metal binding domain. Eventually, system starts from the beginning and so on.''

Our Sponsors
We would like to thank our sponsor,Metis. Metis Biotechnology


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