Team:PennState

Penn State University has participated in the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition for four years as of 2008, and we are excited to participate once more. Our team consists of 5 undergraduate students, one visiting undergrad and one high school student who work independently, coordinated through weekly meetings with our advisers. Check out our Team Page to meet us!

Our main focus for 2008 was the elimination of diauxie in E. coli to create a xylose inducible system independent of glucose regulation. This system could be used for creating more efficient bioproduction by altering the utilization of 5 and 6 carbon sugars. Please check out the links on the left to navigate through our work.

Two other projects begun this year focus on creating biosensors that use human nuclear hormone receptors to recognize potentially harmful compounds. These receptor systems occur naturally in the human body, but our goal is to retain and utilize their functions in E. coli. The links on the left should introduce you to our thought process and progress on each of these projects, and provide a fuller introduction to the topic.

Please explore our website to find out more about us and our projects! If there are any questions or comments about the information on this site please feel free to contact us at gjt5001@psu.edu.

Medal Checklist

Drew Endy On Synthetic Biology

Garrett Tobin On Diauxie Elimination

Sponsors for our team! Thanks so much!

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-  <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2008/d/df/Penn_state_igem_logo.JPG" alt="Penn State" />
+  <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2008/a/ad/Penn_state_igem_logo2.JPG" alt="Penn State" />
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-     <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState" >Home</a> </td>
+     <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState" title="Welcome!">Home</a> </td>
      <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/Team" >The Team</a> </td>
-     <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/Project" >The Project</a> </td>
+     <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/Project" title="Full Abstracts.">The Project</a> </td>
      <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/Parts">Parts</a> </td>
-     <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/Modeling" >Modeling</a> </td>
+     <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/Notebook" title="Day to day lab activity">Notebook</a> </td>
-    <td align="center" ><a class="mainLinks" href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/Notebook" >Notebook</a> </td>
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-  <h4 style="margin-top: 0;">Hormone Biosensors</h4>
+  <h4>Diauxie Elimination</h4>
   <dl id="hbnav">
-   <dd><a href="hbintro" title="Intro to Endocrine Disruption, pseudoestrogens, pthalates, nuclear hormone receptors, and our goals">Introduction</a></dd>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/diauxie/intro">Introduction</a></dd>
-  <dt>Smart Fold</dt>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/diauxie/TheSystem">The System</a></dd>
-   <dd><a href="smartfold/overview">Overview</a></dd>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/diauxie/Strategies">Strategies</a></dd>
-   <dd><a href="smartfold/parts" title="Parts submitted to the registry for this project">Parts</a></dd>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/diauxie/progress">Progress</a></dd>
-   <dd><a href="smartfold/references">References</a></dd>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/diauxie/conclusions">Conclusions</a></dd>
-  <dt>Nuclear Fusion</dt>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/diauxie/parts" title="Parts submitted to the registry for diauxie">Parts</a></dd>
-   <dd><a href="fusion/overview">Overview</a></dd>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/diauxie/references">References</a></dd>
-   <dd><a href="fusion/parts" title="Parts submitted to the registry for this project">Parts</a></dd>
-   <dd><a href="fusion/references">References</a></dd>
   </dl>
-  <h4>Diauxie Elimination</h4>
+  <h4><acronym title="Nuclear Hormone Receptor">NHR Biosensors</acronym><br/></h4>
   <dl id="denav">
-   <dd><a href="diauxie/intro">Introduction</a></dd>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/NHR/introduction">NHR Introduction</a></dd>
-   <dd><a href="diauxie/overview">Overview</a></dd>
-   <dd><a href="diauxie/parts" title="Parts submitted to the registry for this project">Parts</a></dd>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/smartfold/overview">Phthalate Biosensor</a></dd>
-  <dd><a href="diauxie/references">References</dd>
+   <dd><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/fusion/overview">BPA Biosensor</a></dd>
   </dl>
 </td>
 <!-- Main content area -->
-<td valign="top" id="pagecontent"><span style="font-size: 16pt">PENN STATE iGEM 2008</span>
+<td valign="top" id="pagecontent" width="80%"><span style="font-size: 16pt">Welcome to Penn State iGEM 2008</span>
   <hr />
- <p>Welcome to the Penn State iGEM 2008 team website. We have been working hard at a few different projects for this year's competition. Starting this summer we began working trying to create different types of biosensors that use human nuclear hormone receptors to recognize potentially harmful ligands. We also have been finishing up one of last year's projects which is aimed at more reaching efficent bioproduction by altering how <em>E. Coli</em> selects between utilizing 5 and 6 carbon sugars. Please explore our website to find out more about us and our projects!</p>
+   <p class="start"><a href="http://www.psu.edu" title="Pennsylvania State University" target="_blank">Penn State University</a> has participated in the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition for four years as of 2008, and we are excited to participate once more. Our team consists of 5 undergraduate students, one visiting undergrad and one high school student who work independently, coordinated through weekly meetings with our advisers. Check out our <a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/Team" title="Penn State's 2008 iGEM team">Team Page</a> to meet us!</p>
- <p> If there are any questions or comments about the information on this site please contact us at <a href="mailto:gjt5001@psu.edu" title="email us">gjt5001@psu.edu</a>. </p>
+  <p><strong>Our main focus for 2008 was the elimination of <a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/diauxie/intro">diauxie</a> in <em>E. coli</em> to create a xylose inducible system independent of glucose regulation.</strong> This system could be used for creating more efficient bioproduction by altering the utilization of 5 and 6 carbon sugars. Please check out the links on the left to navigate through our work.</p>
+   <p>Two other projects begun this year focus on creating <a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/NHR/introduction"What kind of 'Biosensors' are we talking about?">biosensors</a> that use human nuclear hormone receptors to recognize potentially harmful compounds. These receptor systems occur naturally in the human body, but our goal is to retain and utilize their functions in <em>E. coli</em>. The links on the left should introduce you to our thought process and progress on each of these projects, and provide a fuller introduction to the topic.</p>
-  <table style="padding-left: 0">  <!-- change padding to re-indent this content segment -->
+   <p> Please explore our website to find out more about us and our projects! If there are any questions or comments about the information on this site please feel free to contact us at <a href="mailto:gjt5001@psu.edu" title="email us">gjt5001@psu.edu</a>. </p>
-        <tr><td style="padding-top:30px; padding-right:30px" valign="top" width="90%"><span style="font-size:14pt">Hormone Prescreening <em>E. coli</em></span>
-      <hr />
+     <span style="font-size: 14pt"><a href="https://2008.igem.org/Team:PennState/MedalChecklist">Medal Checklist</a></span>
-      <p>Our project aims to construct a biosensor which will ultimately serve as a prescreening tool to detect the presence of phthalates in water samples. Recently phthalates have been shown to cause negative health effect in humans; some phthalates are even though to be carcinogenic. Analytical detection methods for these compounds are compound specific as well as very costly. Having a simple, and cheap tool to screen for phthalates as a general class of compounds would eliminate some of the cost and time involved in current detection methods.</p>
-      <p> We use the natural human nuclear hormone receptor protein that recognizes phthalates as an agonist (hPPARα), and expressing it heterologously in <em>Escherichia Coli</em>. Because of the complexity of this mammalian protein, expressing it in a prokaryote is difficult. We have two different strategies to express hPPARα and using it to detect phthalates in <em>E. Coli</em>.  </p>
+<table>
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-          <td style="padding-top:30px; padding-right:30px" valign="top" width="45%"><span style="font-size: 14pt">Smart Fold Reporter</span>
-            <hr />
-            <img src="picture here" alt="[img]" style="float:left; margin:5px;"/>
-            <p> <em>Smart Fold Reporter</em> is the subproject for the first strategy for expressing hPPARα in <em>E. coli</em>. This project uses altered growth conditions such that this nuclear hormone receptor protein can be successfully expressed and used to transcriptionally report for the presence of phthalates.</p></td>
-          <td style="padding-top:30px; padding-right:30px" valign="top" width="45%"><span style="font-size:18px">Nuclear Fusion</span>
-            <hr />
-            <img src="picture here" alt="[img]" style="float:left; margin:5px;"/>
-            <p> <em> Nuclear Fusion</em> is our second approach to constructing a phthalate detection system in <em> E. coli</em>. In this project we use just the ligand binding domain of hPPARα fused to thymidylate synthase (TS). Binding of the phthalate ligand to this chimeric protein activates TS. When this construct is placed in a TS diffident strain, only <em>E. coli</em> in the presence of a hPPARalpha agonist will survive. </p></td>
-        </tr>
-<tr>
-     <td colspan="2" style="padding-top:30px; padding-right:30px" valign="top" width="45%"><span style="font-size: 14pt">Diauxie Elimination: <em>Two</em> spoons full of sugar.</span>
-      <hr />
-      <p><img src="picture here" alt="[img]" style="float:left; margin:5px;"/>Cellulosic biomass is an abundant and inexpensive energy source, coming from plant waste: ideal for Ethanol production through fermentation. However, biomass contains glucose and xylose sugars in relatively equal ratios, while <em>e. coli</em> preferentially metabolizes glucose before any other sugar. In this project we attempt to eliminate this phenomenon, called <em>diauxie</em>, and get our cells to utilize both sugars at the same time. Solving this problem will lead to more efficent use of cellulosic biomass including moving towards the future of bioproduction: continous processes.</p>
-   </td>
-  </tr>
    <tr>
-    <td style="padding-top:30px; padding-right:30px" valign="top" width="45%"><span style="font-size: 14pt">Quick Links</span>
+    <td style="padding-top:30px; padding-right:30px" valign="top" width="45%">
-            <hr />
+     <h3>Related Links</h3>
-            <br/>
+     <hr />
-            <p><a href="http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/PennState/final_result#contributions" title="Our Contribution To the Registry">Table of our Contributions to the Registry</a></p>
+     <ul>
-            <p><a href="http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/images/7/73/IgemDesign.swf" title="Interactive Schematic" target="_blank">Interactive <em>E. co</em>Lisa Schematic</a></p>
+       <li><a href="http://partsregistry.org/Main_Page" title="Parts Registry">Parts Registry</a></li>
-            <p> <a href="http://www.ucalgary.ca" title="The University of Calgary" target="_blank">The University of Calgary</a> </p>
-            <p> <a href="http://hsserver01.med.ucalgary.ca/BHSc/BHSc/BHSc.html" title="The Obrien Centre for the BHSC" target="_blank">Obrien Centre for the BHSC</a> </p>
+<li><a href="http://www.che.psu.edu/Faculty/Cirino/" title="Prof. Pat Cirino's Lab website" target="_blank">Prof. Pat Cirino's Lab website</a></li>
-            </div>
+<li><a href="http://www.abe.psu.edu/fac/Richard/Overview.htm" title="Prof. Tom Richard's Lab website" target="_blank">Prof. Tom Richard's Lab website</a></li>
-          </td>
+<li><a href="http://openwetware.org/wiki/IGEM:PennState" title="Penn State iGEM OpenWetWare" target="_blank">Penn State iGEM OpenWetWare</a></li>
-          <td style="padding-top:30px; padding-right:30px" valign="top" width="45%"><span style="font-size: 14pt">Drew Endy On Synthetic Biology</span>
-            <hr />
+       <li><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/che/people/faculty/wood/" title="David Wood" target="_blank">David Wood</a></li>
-			<!--
+       <li><a href="http://www.cmtc.psu.edu/" title="Center for Molecular Toxicology and Carcinogenesis" target="_blank">PennState Center for Molecular Toxicology and Carcinogenesis</a></li>
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+     <h3>Drew Endy On Synthetic Biology</h3>
+       <hr />
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+<td style="padding-top:30px; padding-right:30px" valign="top" width="45%">
+     <h3>Garrett Tobin On Diauxie Elimination</h3>
+       <hr />
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