Team:NYMU-Taipei

Goal:

• Use designer bacteria to replace a hemodialysis machine to remove (filter out) toxic waste for treating kidney failure.

Why is it an interesting problem?

• Approximately 1.3 million people globally have chronic kidney failure that requires either renal transplantation or dialysis - for such patients, the established treatment is hemodialysis
• The mortality rate of patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis remains unacceptably high.
• An extremely high morbidity and a relatively low quality of life (due in part to a high level of dependence and unemployment) and high cost have also been observed.

Our Design:

• After ingesting our BacToKidney capsule, it passes the through stomach without taking any action, nor being digested, and proceeds to the small intestine. Once in the small intestine, the pH Sensor detects the change in pH and activates the clearance processes of Urea, Phosphate, and Guanidine from the body. To allow itself more time to perform its tasks, the pH Sensor also activates the Attachment process, making the capsule attach itself to the small intestine. After a pre-selected amount of time has passed (controlled by the time regulating oscillators), the capsule detaches itself from the small intestine and exits the body.

The parts our project is made up of:

• pH Sensor
  • A sensor of proton concentration (pH)
• Attachment
  • An Attachment anchor that attaches to the small intestine
• Clearance of Urea
  • A Urea clearance device
• Clearance of Phosphate
  • A Phosphate clearance and balance device
• Clearance of Guanidine
  • A Guanidine clearance device
• Time Regulation
  • Enables detachment from the small intestine after a certain amount of time
  • Experimenting with two systems:
    • Cyanoxilator: A tuneable cyanobacterial natural (sinusoidal) oscillator implemented in E. coli.
    • Reloxilator: A tuneable intracell-synchronized relaxation oscillator.

• 2008-10-28: Gradually migrating the wiki pages to here.
• 2008-08-12: The team page now displays us.
• 2008-08-06: New Wikipage design put up!
• 2008-08-01: Wikipage Online!