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From 2012.igem.org

Project description

This year, USTC-China iGEMers are providing a novel immune system for

engineering bacteria to fight against the bacteriophage. We hope this

artificial line of defeat with gene circuits can be of practical use in

fermentation industry.

Since the fermentation industry occurred, 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

are unimaginable if the bacterias are infected by bacteriophages . The

bacterias will die abnormally and the infection will spread quickly.

Without any efficient action, tremendous loss will lie ahead. Nowadays,

common strategies for avoiding this catastrophe is to control the

conditions of the fermentation strictly. Also, people keep selecting

strains against phages. But all the strategies are time consuming and far

from once for all.

However, the engineering bacteria 2012 USTC-China iGEMers hope to

cultivate both protecting themselves when bacteriophage invades the

strain and focusing on producing products without consuming extra energy

when their living environment is safe. In this case, the quality of

fermented products can be guaranteed and the profits of fermentation

industry can be enormously improved.