This page is a summary of all the medal criteria that we believe we have met. We placed links to the corresponding page in our wiki for ease of viewing. We are proud of all that we have achieved and truly believe that our project design can provide the first small but important step toward developing alternative treatment strategies against multi-antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.
We have finished and submitted all required competition deliverables which include our Wiki, Project Promotion Video, and the Judging Form. We will be looking forward to attending our Judging Session as well.
Each of our members' and external collaborators’ attributions are outlined on the Attributions page.
Our Project Description provides an overview of our project’s purpose, function, and impact. We described the motivation for our project, and how we decided the best way to tackle S. aureus infections is to combine the best of two worlds. Namely, the ability of bacteriophages to target specific bacteria, and the antibacterial property of Photodynamic Therapy. We have provided references at the end of the page as well.
Whether it be through our new basic part, composite part, explanation of the 3D printing process, or troubleshooting breakdown, our Contribution page covers it all. We have contributed to the iGEM community by providing new parts that allow for the retargeting of M13 phages toward S. aureus. We provided three versions of S. aureus targeting peptides for future teams to test. We also provided a detailed procedure for 3D printing of our LED lamp. Lastly, we described our own troubleshooting process and hope that future teams can benefit from them.
During our project, we went through several iterations of the engineering design process, the most prominent being discovering a more efficient way to view results. In our Wetlab design, our initial version of the production plasmid contained only a single cloning site in front of the Gp3/Gp8 ORF, making it difficult to determine whether or not BsaI cloning was successful. Upon discussion with our PI Dr. Kircherberger, our second reintegration included an mRFP dropout cassette. For our Drylab design, our initial LED lamp design envisioned a hollowed-out lamp with LEDs embedded inside, however, we later realized that the design was not going to be user-friendly if the end users (patients with Staph infections) had infections in parts of their body that’s not easily accessible. We eventually adapted our current minimal but free-moving design. Thus, we have demonstrated engineering success by excusing at least one round of engineering cycles. Learn more on our Wetlab and Drylab Engineering page!
For the inspiration of this project, we had help from our PIs Dr. Kircherberger, Dr. Wilson, and Dr. Huang for their ideas and inputs to help us come up with our idea for this year's project. Our team also talked to a few business colleagues about intellectual property and regulations to help determine future plans for this project and how to execute those plans once it comes to it. We also did some outreach for a local middle school, teaching the middle schoolers a little bit about biology, synthetic biology, and some biotechnology while also doing an interactive activity with them. More information on all of these activities here.
In our project, we created a basic part that encodes for the Gp3 protein of the M13 phage. This part has been codon optimized, made Type IIs compatible, and includes a 6His tag at the N-terminus for ease of detection and/or purification if needed. See more in the Wiki Parts section, or go directly to the Parts registry.
In our effort to design an engineered M13 phage capable of targeting to S. aureus, we have created a composite part that includes two standard parts from the iGEM collection; a strong constitutive promoter, and a ribosome bringing site, to drive the expression of the chimeric Gp3 protein. In addition, we created a basic part encoding for the E. coli DsbA signaling peptide, followed by multiple versions of S. aureus targeting peptides. Lastly, the chimeric Gp3 with a 6His tag is fused translationally. See more in our Parts collection or go directly to the Parts registry.
Our team proudly represents a wide range of cultures, backgrounds, and experiences, making inclusivity a pivotal part of our identity. We pride ourselves on not only making our team inclusive but also our project and outreach. Learn more about these efforts on our Inclusivity page.