Team:Guelph/Team

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*'''Dr. Emma Allen-Vercoe''':    Thanks for _long_list_
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Revision as of 02:55, 9 September 2008

Home The Team The Project Parts Notebook Modeling Links

The University of Guelph is a mid sized, comprehensive University that is generally regarded as Canada's agricultural university and outstanding in the field of life sciences. Our university motto is actually, "Changing lives, improving life." Add the words, "using synthetic biology" to that motto and you've got a university which was made to participate in iGEM.


This is our first year in the competition, although it is hoped that it will take root here and become a creative outlet for students to use competition as a primer for research and development that will help sustainably and profoundly help the world's biological science tackle problems of food, medicine, and material production that we face. Maybe it will even give our careers credibility, jump starts, and enthusiasm?


Initial funding for the team was provided for us by the Gordon Nixon Leadership Award, which was won by our iGEM superman David earlier this year. Subsequent partnerships and sponsors have given us products to work with (NEB and IDT), an operating budget (Departments of Plant Agriculture, Graduate Student Association, and Molecular Cellular Biology), and lab equipment and space (Dr. Manish Raizada). It has been hard to organize and bushwhack through a totally new realm, but we hope next year we'll get funding for paid positions and University recognized course credit to help ensure this adventure in synthetic biology will continue and benefit future groups of grad students and undergrads.


DB Guelph iGEM Logo.jpg
To rehash our project page, lets discuss our project. Microbes are found in every nook and cranny of the entire planet, and multicellular organisms are no exception. Plants and animals are found to contain huge numbers of bacteria and fungi that help with nutrient absorption, produce beneficial compounds, fight off pathogens, or often are even pathogens themselves. We are interested in taking advantage of some of these microbes to deliver transgenic payloads for the benefit or modification of the host organism. These might be called GM endosymbionts. On the human side, we would like to introduce the carotendoid metabolic genes from a well studied soil microbe called Erwinia urodevora into human probiotic microbes which will survive and colonize the intestine for stable production of the essential human nutrient, pro-vitamin A. Time permitting, we will attempt to enhance carotenoid accumulation by increasing plasma membrane sink by overexpression of the fumarate reductase operon. Millions of humans suffer from vitamin A deficiencies across the world, resulting in blindness and death which could be mitigated by symbitic production of this important vitamin. In an exciting partnership with iGEM Calgary Ethics, they are helping us explore issues associated with this technology and potential target markets which might benefit from our project.

A more basic project will focus on RNAi signal delivery by a corn plant endosymbiont to silence corn genes. Most euaryotes react to double stranded RNA by copying it and chopping up any mRNA with the same sequence, while prokaryotes do not seem to posses the same response. Since bacteria like K. pneumonii live in large stable populations within corn plants, it is believed that as individual bacteria grow, die and lyse within the plant host, they will release RNAi transcripts into the sensitive host during the entire life cycle of the plant, which will silence the targeted gene and show a phenotype indicating gene function. Bacterial Induced Gene Silencing (BIGS) will be a useful, quick, and stable alternative for plant functional genomic research.

Simpsonguelph.jpg



Who we are

Advisors

Dave The RAVE Johnston

Timothy Gingerich

Dr. Manish N. Raizada

  • Dave The RAVE Johnston: This man has travelled the world and has brought back the proud chewing gum of different nations to prove it-- he's a calm and collected PhD student in plant agriculture; he aspires to feed hungry bodies with food and hungry brains with delicious science; his idealistic vision transforms us like a broad host range plasmid.
  • Timothy Gingerich: Our Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) affiliate; this PhD student guides us with extensive knowledge and practical experience in genetic techniques in both prokarya and eukarya.
  • Dr. Manish N. Raizada: Our technical advisor and representative; Dr. Raizada has kindly donated his lab and legal know-how to keep our projects running.


Operation SynthOp (Synthetic Operon Subproject)

Brendan Hussey

Lisa Ledger

Tin Vo

  • Brendan Hussey: Our very own renaissance man; athletic and dedicated to science, he is presently balancing as many as three genetics projects simultaneously and still has time to concatenate primers together; he can explain the most convoluted of concepts with little more than a diagram and ten words.
  • Lisa Ledger: An interdisciplined being; she is equally well tuned in the lab, as well as in bioinformatics; this quick-witted well-rounded scientist can cure what ails your plasmid.
  • Tin Vo: A deeply reflective individual-- silent in his contemplation; precise in his execution-- He is our laboratory ninja.


The Interference Brigade (RNAi Subproject)

Jennifer Jennivo Vo

Mufaddal Moff Man Girnary

  • Jennifer Jennivo Vo: She is dedicated and quick learning; with her pleasant disposition, she can coax a bacterial culture into growing with just her smile.
  • Mufaddal Moff Man Girnary: He is well-read and well-rounded; this gentleman adds a layer of intrigue and unpredictable insight to the team.


Nerve Endings (Legal, Business and Gophers)

Eddie LOUD Ma

  • Eddie LOUD Ma: The team gopher-- forging connections with professors and chairs, keeping the minutes and doing the occasional transformation; thankfully, hunting season is closed.


Thanks to Our Contributors and Collaborators

  • Dr. Emma Allen-Vercoe: Thanks for _long_list_
  • Dr. Deborah Stacey: Thanks for _long_list_
  • iGEM Minnesota Team Time Bomb: With previous experience in carotenoid genetics they were very fast and supportive in sending us some genes so we could stand on their shoulders (they are giants)!
  • iGEM Calgary Ethics: Is the wetlab stuff we're doing a relevant and sustainable for the problems we percieve? Where and underwhat conditions might it actually help? (assuming we can actually make it) Calgary Ethics have conducted an ethics and economics study for us to provide the necessary information and tools to help answer these questions. It is posted here : https://2008.igem.org/Team:Calgary_Ethics/Collaboration
  • iGEM Edinborough: Also having worked on carotenoids in the past, Edinborough was great in sharing carotenoid metabolic genes, flux modulators, and gram positive plasmids with us. With collaborators like these, globalization doesn't seem like such a bad thing after all.

What we did

(Provide proper attribution for all work)


Where we're from

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