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Description

Competition Deliverables

Projet Attributions

On the attribution page of our Wiki, we included a detailed description of the roles and tasks carried out by all the members of our team as well as advisors, instructors, PI, and external collaborators during this project. In this section, we show our appreciation for their contribution to our project.
Read more on our Attributions page

Project Description

In this section, we described the issue that we decided to tackle during this iGEM project, i.e., the invasion of Asian hornets in Europe. The ecosystems and biodiversity are put at risk because Asian hornets hunt local insects to feed their larvae. We explained our motivation in pursuing this project, the design of our solution, and our proposed implementation.
Read more on our Description page

Contribution

As a contribution to future generations of iGEM Teams, we created a pipeline to streamline the analysis of BLAST results which in our case was applied to identify off-target potential of our RNAi target sequences. We developed a Shiny app that provides an interactive way to visualise these off-target hits from BLAST results and allows users to upload specific BLAST output files, analyse the data, and easily generate heatmaps and summary tables.
Read more on our Contribution page

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Description

Engineering Success

During our months in the lab, we went through several cycles of design, build, test and learn (DBTL). In this section, we discuss the cycles we went through for cloning the plasmid carrying Argonaut gene (AGO) as well as for the DNA delivery into Lactococcus lactis. By applying the DBTL framework, we were able to exercise our troubleshooting skills to solve the problems that presented themselves and look for alternative ways to achieve satisfactory results.
Read more on our Engineering page

Human Practices

We conducted several interviews with stakeholders and experts to learn more about our issue and how our solution can help those affected. On our human practices page, we describe what we learnt about hornet behaviour and about current solutions, as well as the shortcomings of these, for combatting the Asian hornets invasion.
Read more on our Human Practices page

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Description

Model

On our model page, we describe how we created a model based on questions we posed to ourselves during the development of our project. We were wondering whether targeting larvae or adult workers would be the most efficient solution to fight the Asian hornets invasion, and whether our dsRNA should be delivered directly in the form of an shRNA or through bacteria producing the shRNA, that could colonise the gut of the Asian hornet and spread among the colony. This model is a virtual simulation of a bee population under the pressure from the Asian hornet invasion which allows us to answer the questions without real-life experiments.
Read more on our Model page

Hardware

To avoid exposing our protein bait to other insects, we built a box fitted with an image recognition software and motion detectors that will selectively allow only Asian hornets to access protein bait containing the engineered Lactococcus lactis. On our hardware page, we describe how we built the box and the various components which allows it to work. The box was created in many prototypes to at last be 3D printed.
Read more on our Hardware page

Integrated Human Practices

We talked with experts who gave their opinion on various aspects of our project. Following these interviews in our integrated human practices section, we were inspired to build the model and hardware for delivering our engineered Lactococcus lactis specifically to Asian hornets. These interviews evolved our project and the design as well as the functionalities of our box.
Read more on our Integrated Human Practices page