Team:Brown/Project/Overview

Inspired by the need for a simple, inexpensive, and portable means of toxin detection, Brown University’s Team Toxipop wanted to create a biosensor that utilizes a novel method to detect the presence of a toxin in a solution of bacteria. After a great deal of brainstorming, our team finalized the design for our project. A gene cassette coding for cell lysis in E. Coli will be placed under the control of an inducible promoter such as a pBAD promoter. Once cell lysis has occurred, the charged intracellular contents of the cells will become part of the extracellular solution, increasing the solution’s conductance and indicating the presence of the inducer.

Strategy

After doing research on current toxin detection systems in the market and seeing what is missing from these systems, our team compiled a list of guidelines for an ideal biosensor:

Biological

• Uses minimal biological machinery
• Direct induction of system by inducer creates a sensitive system
• Versatile construct can measure different substances/toxins, i.e. arabinose (proof of concept), lead, mercury, arsenic

Engineering

• Compact system for sample analysis
• Economically feasible

Minimal biological machinery: Our biological construct consists of three interacting proteins under the control of a single promoter. Such a simple construct