Team:KULeuven/Zandbak/Home

Synthetic biology is a new challenge in biosciences. It combines biology and engineering principles to design and build new biological functions and systems. Examples are abound: cancer cell invading bacteria, microbes that take pictures, antimalarial drug producers,... The advantage of using living systems for these purposes is that, once they are designed and built, they are self-reproducible. The challenge, however lies exactly within the design and construction: making biological circuits and devices as robust and predictive as their electrical counterparts. ...

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The international Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) or iGEM competition is a synthetic biology competition for multidisciplinary teams of undergraduate students. It was first organized in 2004 by Drew Endy, Randy Rettberg and Tom Knight of MIT with two goals in mind: to yield new ideas in synthetic biology and to form the future researchers in this new scientific community. Whereas 5 US teams competed in 2004, the 2007 edition already had 750 students and advisors grouped in 54 teams from 19 countries. This year, the competition already counts 83 teams!

The core of the iGEM competition is to design and build a “new genetic machine” with BioBricks. BioBricks are standardized, off the shelf biological parts that are used by genetic network designers. All BioBricks that were made during previous iGEM competitions are registered and documented in the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Each iGEM competition thus starts from the efforts of the previous years.

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• More on our team

The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KULeuven) was founded almost six hundred years ago. The university's academic fame has attracted scholars and scientists as Justus Lipsius, Gerard Mercator and Andreas Vesalius who have all made valuable contribution to the European intellectual life. The KULeuven can look back on a glorious past, but it also moves with the times. The university's educational concept is modern, with research activities focused on the needs and aspirations of contemporary people and society. The KULeuven is famous not just within the borders of Belgium, but far beyond as well. Being a very lively city of and for students, Leuven aspires to maintain that reputation. In contrast to most university cities, Leuven does not have a closed campus. The university buildings are spread troughout the city and were originally built for completely different purposes.

The KULeuven team consists of 12 enthusiastic students selected out of three faculties, 4 civil engineers, 4 bio-engineers and 4 biochemists.

Maarten Breckpot

Maarten Breckpot

Studies:
1st Master of Applied Sciences and Engineering – Mathematical Engineering
Country:
Belgium

Nick Van Damme

Nick Van Damme

Studies:
1st Master of Applied Sciences and Engineering – Mathematical Engineering
Country:
Belgium

Benjamien Moeyaert

Benjamien Moeyaert

Studies:
3rd Bachelor of Biochemistry and Biotechnology
Country:
Belgium

Stefanie Roberfroid

Stefanie Roberfroid

Studies:
3rd Bachelor of Bioscience Engineering – Biomolecular Engineering
Country:
Belgium

Dries Vercruysse

Dries Vercruysse

Studies:
1st Master of Applied Sciences and Engineering - Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Country:
Belgium

Andim Doldurucu

Andim Doldurucu

Studies:
1st Master of Bioscience Engineering – Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Country:
Turkey

Hanne Tytgat

Hanne Tytgat

Studies:
3rd Bachelor of Biochemistry and Biotechnology
Country:
Belgium

Elke Van Assche

Elke Van Assche

Studies:
3rd Bachelor of Bioscience Engineering – Biomolecular Engineering
Country:
Belgium

Jan Mertens

Jan Mertens

Studies:
1st Master of Bioscience Engineering – Biomolecular Engineering
Country:
Belgium

Nathalie Busschaert

Nathalie Busschaert

Studies:
3rd Bachelor of Chemistry
Country:
Belgium

Jonas Demeulemeester

Jonas Demeulemeester

Studies:
1st Master of Biochemistry and Biotechnology
Country:
Belgium

Antoine Vandermeersch

Antoine Vandermeersch

Studies:
2nd and 3rd Bachelor of Applied Sciences and Engineering – Electrical and Materials Engineering
Country:
Belgium

Dr. Coli, the bacterial drug delivery system Our team’s project is Dr. Coli, an E. coli bacterium that produces a drug when and where it is needed in the human body. It does this in an intelligent way, such that the drug production meets the individual patient’s needs. And when the patient is cured, Dr. Coli eliminates itself from the body. To achieve this, a molecular timer registers the time since the last disease signal sensed. Then after a certain time, Dr. Coli self-destructs. However, when the disease flares up again – above a certain noise level - the timer is reset and new drug is produced. Finally, the timer will not start counting during the production of Dr. Coli, thanks to its disease-memory. Dr. Coli thus has several advantages over classical drugs, and, if proven successful, could have many medical applications. One example could be the delivery of a vasoactive intestinal peptide as a potential treatment for Crohn's disease. Within the time frame of the iGEM competition, we aim at delivering a proof of concept of Dr. Coli. For the input and output of the system, i.e. sensing the disease signal and producing the appropriate amount of drug, we use a dummy system. The most important assets of our proof of concept are the different control mechanisms. Since these are very much dependent on kinetic and other constants, Dr. Coli heavily relies on proper modeling.