Team:Valencia Biocampus/Project

Who said scientists don't care about microbial cultures?

This year, Valencia Biocampus team members are going to break down communication barriers among species through an artificial language based on light wavelengths, which will allow us to know more about the requirements of the microorganisms we thrive everyday in our labs. Depending on different metabolic conditions, our microorganisms (bacteria and yeast) will express fluorescent proteins that are under the control of promoters sensitive to these environmental factors. Therefore, by using a fluorimeter controlled by voice-recognition software, we are able to ask and get answers (like real-life talking!) of the microbial environment! Moreover we have a brand-new experience, related to UV-regulation, in which we force bacteria to express a gene!
Our final goal is to characterize and completely model bacterial behavior affected by these factors. And last, but not least, our Human Practices team has an awesome story-telling script for the audience!

This is a general scheme of our project. All the experimental work is outlined and splitted up into color boxes: Modeling (purple), Human Practices (blue) and Talking Interfaces (yellow). As long as you surf through the wiki, you will find out the special case of the question “Have you taken your pill?”, which has not been actually asked to our bacteria, but plays a central role in our Human Practices work. Check our achievements to understand our project as a whole!