Brainstorm area

Some ideas posted by other teams can be found at the [http://openwetware.org/wiki/IGEM:Idea_exchange Idea exchange] page. A list of the projects of last year arranged in few categories can be found at [http://openwetware.org/wiki/IGEM:Projects_categorized List] page.

Biofuels

Styrene Production

Styrene is a hydrocarbon used in several field of chemical engineering and, of course, as biofuel. Some previous experiences on E. coli transformation for styrene oxide production have been reported [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/72501719/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 here].

Hydrogen Production

Hydrogen is not properly a biofuel but is a very active molecule in biological systems and perhaps engineering an organism able to produce it could be an easily affordable task. Check this [http://openwetware.org/wiki/Biology_of_Hydrogen_Production link] for further info.

Information processing

Schmitt trigger

Bologna worked on a Schmitt trigger last year ([http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Bologna University of Bologna 2007]). Domenico already gave an explanation about this device. The project is also very well documented so have a look at their site. More about the Schmitt trigger can be found here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmitt_trigger).

What can be done with a Schmitt trigger?

• Create some kind of oscillator - I think Domenico also mentioned this already.

Signal amplifier

Wolkenhauer's group in Rostock recently published this [http://www.biomedcentral.com/1752-0509/2/38 paper] on BMC Sys Bio. It describes a mechanism used in the JAK-STAT pathway to amplify a signal in a signaling cascade. The principle doesn't seem to be too complex and we could think to take it as model to add another important "brick" to the parts registry: a signal amplifier.

Other interesting stuff

Magnetotactic bacteria

• Somewhere I read something about this 'magnetic' bacteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetotactic_bacteria) - maybe this can be used for orientation/movement. This organism is already successfully used to produce electrical energy.
• Filippo Menolascina 12:30, 26 May 2008 (EDT): Bastiaan's idea seems very interesting...we could apply time-varying magnetic field stimulation to make bacteria move, or "dance"! We could even think at some form of magneto-activated memory if MTB orientation can be selectively modified (something like the mechanism computer hard drives work on). Bastiaan, do you know anything about the issues in cloning the genes involved in biomineralisation stated in the wikipage you pointed out? (Bastiaan: No, not really)
• Rad Haghi, 10 June 2008 I have something in my mind about this bacteria. As I understood they can be aligned into magnetic field. This procedure is like something that we have in piezoelectric materials. The material is aligned into the electric field so it can have a small change in volume which can be used for a small movement. Maybe it is applicable on this kind of bacteria to use them as an actuator that produce a precise movement. Definitely it has very small movement but this small movement can be used in microsystems and MEMS.

Printing

• Marco de Groot While reading through some of the previous iGEM projects I was intrigued by the idea of Calgary 2007. The used lysis of agar to produce a high resolution picture on agar plates by bacteria. If we could have bacteria produce a stain/pigment/dye or solid compound (like crosslinking/polimerising it's surrounding) in a 3D agar block we could print a 3 dimensional picture or even a solid item. We would need to excite these bacteria then with a number of different stimuli, like 3 lasers to mark the position of production.
• Annother extension of this concept could be to make bacteria produce a pigment and a crosslinking to cotton fiber for high resolution fabric printing. One would spray/spread the bacteria on a T-shirt, exite them using a laser light or metabolite, they produce a pigment and an enzyme (or enzyme system) to crosslink the pigment to the cotton. Just washing once would remove the bacteria (or inactivate them by initiation of a self destruct/DNA-ase after they are done). This may reduce the environmental load of staining fabrics, as we would not use harsh chemicals to raise pH need high temperatures for the crosslinking.

Sticky bacteria

• Bastiaan I found this news item on the internet about a sticky bacteria [http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2006/04/10/glue-bacteria060410.html]. It is about the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caulobacter_crescentus Caulobacter crescentus] and it is said to be "nature's strongest-known glue to stay in place on wet surfaces". Any interesting applications using stickiness?

Favourite projects

Filippo Menolascina

• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Bologna University of Bologna 2007]
• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Naples TIGEM - University of Naples 2007]
• [http://www.openwetware.org/wiki/IGEM:Tsinghua/2007 University of Tsinghua 2007]

Domenico Bellomo

• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Bologna University of Bologna 2007]
• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Edinburgh University of Edinburgh 2007]
• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Naples TIGEM - University of Naples 2007]

Bastiaan

• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Alberta Alberta 2007]
• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Ljubljana Ljubljana 2007]
• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Davidson_Missouri_W Davidson Missouri 2007]

Emrah

• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/ETHZ ETH-Zurich 2007]
• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Taipei Taipei 2007]
• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Turkey Turkey 2007]

Farzad Ehtemam

• [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Imperial Imperial College 2007]