Our team project：BIO-DOSIMETER

On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck off the coast of Eastern Japan and triggered a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant, leading to a nationwide nuclear crisis. While ‘Grays’, ‘Sieverts’, ‘exposure’, ‘equivalent dosage’ and other related terms and units became referred daily in the media, much of the general populace remained ignorant of their meanings and significance. The need for low-cost, portable and easy-to-use dosimeters was apparent as measurements of radiation exposure could only be conducted at dedicated installations spaced far apart and the numbers reported only infrequently.

Hence, last year, we decided to tackle the building of a biological dosimeter. we attempted to modularly transfer radiation-response and DNA repair genes from the extremophilic bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans to the well-characterized, easily cultivable chassis of Escherichia coli. From there we tried on (1) evaluating radioresistance conferred by the heterologous genes ,and (2) connecting the radiation/DNA damage response system to visible outputs such as color pigment production.

This year we further developed "Bio-dosimeter": our project of iGEM 2011. Last year, we cloned selected genes from radiodurans genomic DNA and BioBricked them. We then conferrd additional UV-induced DNA damage tolerance by transforming certain genes into E.coli.　iGEM osaka 2012 set two research objectives, (1) to assess tolerance to various types of DNA damege,(2) to show DNA damage detection more clearly

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