Team:TUDelft

Welcome to the TU Delft 2008 iGEM wiki! On this page information about the project and its progress will appear during the months we are working on it. The climax of this project will be at the 8th and 9th of November in Boston, when the iGEM jamboree will take place.

Who are we?

This is the first year the TU Delft participates in the iGEM competition. We are six undergraduate students, four instructors and a lot of advisors, willing to help out and think with us when this is necessary. An overview of the people involved and our competences can be found on the team page.

What do we want to achieve?

We want to make a bacterium that is able to monitor the temperature of its surroundings. Also, we would like to have a convenient way to ‘read’ the temperature from the bacterium. This can be done by developing a color or smell based output system. Furthermore, we would like to focus on the ethical side of synthetic biology.

Why is this important?

The need for a thermometer on nano-scale has been described [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B82X8-4N13BB2-N-1&_cdi=33024&_user=499885&_orig=search&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F2007&_sk=999979998&view=c&wchp=dGLbVlz-zSkzS&md5=02d4712f0e1ba955f322b80941b09106&ie=/sdarticle.pdf]. A thermometer of this size can be used to create temperature profiles in electronic and biological devices. Nanothermometers can also play a role in the hyperthermic treatment of cancer cells. In this therapy, cancer cells are killed by localized heat treatment, while non-cancer cells are not affected. To successfully apply this procedure, a way is needed to determine the local temperature within the body. To sum up, a nano-scaled thermometer can be used for (heat) imaging purposes, cancer targeting and drug delivery.

We want to develop a basic, easy-to-detect output system. Nowadays one of the most used outputs is one of the fluorescent proteins. To detect expression of such a protein, one needs a microscope and laser(s). A standardized output system that develops either color or smell would be more convenient in detecting, surpassing the need for additional instruments to detect the performance of an engineered system.