Team:ETH Zurich/Applications

From 2012.igem.org

Eth ecolipseeth logo.png
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Contents

E.colipse in the real world

Beads

File:Alginate beads eth.gif
Alginate Beads

To think the project through to the end, we spent some thought on the application of our system. The purpose of E.colipse is sun protection and warning if the radiation is harmful. To actually protect and warn, we need to apply the bacterial. Our first thought was the intelligent sunscreen, where bacteria like E.coli live in alginate beads. These beads contain media and bacteria and can possibly deal with the safety issue of liberating genetically modified bacteria into the environment. The tiny beads can be used as an emulsion for a sunscreen product.

Skin flora

Another idea would be to implement our system into bacteria like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staphylococcus_epidermidis Staphylococcus epidermis] that are naturally part of human skin flora. The engineering of natural occuring bacteria with our system would enable a area wide covering of the skin and a reliable protection independent of whether one uses sun screen or not! This science fictional application of engineered bacteria can increase human health in far future.

UV resistant bacteria

During the European Jamboree in Amsterdam, another possible application of our system became evident: Some iGEM projects, specially those in the Environment track, imply that, at some point, bacteria operate outside in the wild. Our system can make bacteria themselves more resistant to dangerous UV radiation, thus avoiding mutation of the bacterial DNA and increase the bacterias fitness.


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