Team:Illinois/Project

From 2008.igem.org

Revision as of 18:23, 7 August 2008

We are the inaugural iGEM team here at the University of Illinois. We are very excited to be participating and look forward to a summer full of fun, learning, and hopefully a successful project.

Overall project

For our project we intend to create a yeast-based biosensor capable of detecting and signalling the presense of a pathogen. We intend to use directed evolution to develop a cell surface receptor capable of binding the pathogen. This receptor will then initiate a signaling cascade which will induce a change in the yeast, a color change for example. This project is important because there is a demonstrated need for cheap and effective monitoring of water-borne pathogens in the third world where traditional detection methods are not feasible.

Subprojects

To improve our odds of achieving our project we have decided to modulate our team into 3 disparate groups, each pursuing variant methods to accomplish the above goal, that is, cheap detection of water-bourne pathogens. The three methods and teams are detailed below.

If you were not present at the June 10th meeting, pick a group and contact the members.

Antibody GPCR Fusion

This team will attempt pathogen detection by fusing the appropriate antibody domain to a GPCR receptor and upon binding of the target protein (i.e. cholera toxin), linking the resulting signal cascade to transcription of a reporter, GFP or LacZ.

Antibody Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Fusion

This project will attempt to detect a pathogen by using a secreted antibody or antibody fusion protein.

Bimolecular Fluorescence Biosensor

A soluble biosensor that activates a fluorescent protein upon binding a specific biomolecule

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