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The iGEM 2012 team for the Norwich Research Park and University of East Anglia (NRP UEA) are a group of seven biology-based undergraduate students working in the labs within UEA’s BIO building.

NRP UEA iGEM Team 2012 Project Outline

The iGEM 2012 team for the Norwich Research Park and University of East Anglia (NRP UEA) are a group of seven biology-based undergraduate students working in the labs within UEA’s BIO building. We have been looking at the role of nitric oxide (NO) in biological systems and are aiming to produce a BioBrick that can sense NO within an environment, report on the levels, and go on to make relevant and desirable changes.

Possible applications we see for this include; cancer therapeutics, where NO levels are detected and raised above the level at which it aids angiogenesis and into the levels at which it is toxic to a tumour; and environmental aspects, where the bio-sensor may be attached to bioluminescence in order to report levels of NO in soil for instance.

Our first BioBrick will be a hybrid bacterial and mammalian promoter (using PyeaR and NS2E9 elements) which will detect NO levels. We aim to use a chassis of Escherichia coli in order to test our BioBrick before investigating its competency within a Salmonella chassis for future applications within a medical system. We also aim to characterise BioBricks produced by previous iGEM teams, especially those involved with sensing physiologically-relevant molecules and reporting with fluorescence or bioluminescence.

We have also looked at various aspects of human outreach and plan to undertake a programme of Synthetic Biology public awareness as well as employing various methods to make our project accessible to those interested outside of the team.