Team:USTC-China

WELCOME!

This year, USTC-China iGEMers are going to provide a novel immune system of engineering bacteria to fight against the bacteriophage. We hope this artificial line of defeat composed of gene circuits can be of practical use in fermentation industry.

Since the fermentation industry appeared, the phage infection has become a big threat to engineering bacteria. During mass production of dairy products, enzymes, amino acids, antibiotics and pesticides, the results would be unimaginable if bacteria were infected by bacteriophages. Bacteria will be abnormal and die and the infection will spread quickly. Without any efficient strategy, tremendous loss will lie ahead. Nowadays, common strategy for avoiding this catastrophe is to control the conditions of the fermentation strictly. Meanwhile, people keep selecting strains against phages. But all the strategies are time-consuming and far from once-for-all.

However, the engineering bacteria which 2012 USTC-China iGEMers hope to cultivate would both protect themselves when bacteriophage invades the strain and focus on producing products without consuming extra energy when their living condition is safe. In this case, the quality of fermented products can be guaranteed and the profits of fermentation industry can be enormously improved.

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