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From 2012.igem.org

Team:Alberta/Templates/boxcatogories

The Project of future

This year the University of Alberta team is developing a biological sensor circuit with three pigment colours to generate multiple coloured output results. We developed this idea because traditional biological reporters have been limited to a small set of fluorescent proteins and colour genes, which produce only an all-or-none output. Furthermore, having only a single channel of output limits the application of other sensors in a single biological device. Therefore, this is clear that the traditional sensor system requires easy to use bioreporters that are capable of responding to chemical gradients and mixing independent output channels. As a result, we used existing genetic parts to construct a biosensor circuit, such as the Uppsala chromoproteins, the Cambridge colours, switching mechanism (transcriptional activation competition) discovered by the 2010 iGEM team, and assembly methods pioneered by the 2009 and 2010 iGEM teams. Moreover, the biosensor circuit is designed to be regulated by chemical gradients and produce an output of various colours to generate a colour wheel. This biosensor will become the new age of easy–to-read reporter that are incorporated into new versions of the Genomikon kit, which direct impact both research and education usage.

Team Bio

This year our iGEM team consists of four undergraduate students, as well as four high school students who will be joining our team later in the summer. We are being advised by two professors and a PhD student. It will be an interesting year for our team as only three of the eight team members have a background in biological sciences. Through being a smaller team however, we are all able to get lots of experience both in lab and office duties. We are looking forward to having a great time representing the University of Alberta this fall in the coming regional and hopefully championship jamborees.