. Important applications e.g. cancer and buildings so useful to work it out
Preliminary Lab
. Looked at PyeaR and CArG, ligated them together in two orientations for a flexible promoter (info on what each is)
Lab Work
. Made into biobricks (link to registry page)
. Ligated to RFP/CFP and got photos to prove it works
. Used RFP/CFP with the fluorometer etc. to get data on sensitivity
. Tranfected into mammalian cells to show flexibility
. Studied the growth rate
Results
. Graphs from flow and fluorometer
. Pictures etc. from mammalian transfection
. Growth study on MB/BM
Conclusions
BM/MB better or the same, RFP/CFP better or the same etc.
Future Applications
Cancer
Warrior Cell
A problem with current cancer therapeutic techniques is that they are not specific to cancer cells, leading to
patient discomfort. We hope to engineer E.coli cells that selectively identifies cancerous cells through their
anaerobic environment and secrete high concentrations of NO, mimicking macrophages, and thus killing
these cells. These cells are known to be hypoxic, and hypoxia is a hallmark for cancer cells already used in
tumour detection. Our Warrior Cell construct hopes to pave the way for a new kind of therapeutic strategy
that delivers a therapeutic agent only when and where it is needed.
Buildings
Soil
Future Experiments
. Full quantitative analysis to see where the values lie; combine with tuners for different sensitivity levels
. With different substrates (e.g. nitrite salt, NO donor)
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