And We're Off!

We apologize for the extremely long hiatus. With classes and preparations it was difficult to keep this blog going.

In just a few hours, the University of Calgary iGEM team will be heading off to MIT to celebrate our hard work over the summer with 112 other teams around the world. How exciting!

Photos of our events will be uploaded on our Picasa album. Check it out!

Biofilms for the Future

Synthetic biology isn't always a "Frankenstein-sounding" field of science, like one Los Angeles Times article puts it. While some labs like the Venter lab have synthesized and inserted a complete bacterial genome, most other labs, including those from iGEM, have much more modest and practical goals.

For example, the Groningen team is designing a way to use bacteria to create self-assembling film that repels water. By integrating a gene that produces hydrophobic proteins into bacteria, a new strain can be developed that can produce rigid biofilm. The process can be stopped with exposure to UV light.

This project can potentially be cheaper and less toxic than the expensive chemicals used to waterproof materials currently. Repelling water is an effective way to reduce bacterial and fungal growth on surfaces, as well as resisting corrosion because it keeps the surface clean and dry. Imagine: maybe in the future we can rustproof our car parts by letting bacteria do all the work for us.

Now isn't that neat?


Patrick

Synthetic Immune System?

Imagine taking a drop of your blood, dripping it into a bowl and having it travel through a network of vessels to different colonies of yeast. Each colony would act as an external biosensor for your body detecting a variety of deficiencies and possible anomalies that could be present. It is personalized medicine to the extreme, customized to your body and lifestyle. For example, if you had anaemia the yeast would monitor your iron levels in your blood and alert you if they got low. A different colony of yeast could even synthesize the needed iron for you, which would be sent back to you through the network of vessels, to be absorbed through a mouthpiece. Sound fictitious? Well that’s probably because it is. But Tuur van Balen, a designer in London has just this vision. He calls it the Synthetic Immune System. He imagines that in the future, synthetic biology could lead to a more personalized approach to medicine where we might even outsource our own metabolic actions to engineered organisms such as Yeast. He displayed his model and vision at an exhibition at the Royal College of Art in March. For more information, check out this link to his website.

Emily

Bio-Art by Osaka

In 2009, the Osaka iGEM team developed a set of "bio-art" tools. They created colour palettes and a signalling system between bacterial cells that produced some pretty awesome artwork when plated on soft agar.

There was a wide array of colours produced, ranging from red, green, cyan, yellow, and orange fluorescent proteins, as well as red, orange, yellow, black, brown, and purple pigments. With this, they created flower-patterned petri dishes, glowing cocktail glasses, and even an 8-bit Mario replica!

Here are some of the many art pieces the team has created.

This just goes to show that with enough creativity, the sky really is the limit for synthetic biology. Who knows? Maybe in the future we'll be using bacteria as an art medium.

Patrick

Biobricks = Legos

The “biobrick” concept of iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) give genetic engineering a more playful dimension in an interesting way. For example, undergraduate teams can combine compatible parts to create a useful system. Just as we play with legos and let our imagination take its course, and learn about shapes and compatibility through the project, biobricks let our curiosity become reality, and learn more about the biological systems, compatibility of different genes and much more. iGEM has the potential to teach students molecular biology in a much more interesting and interactive method. An undergraduate student, Dev Vyas, of the University of Calgary says that he likes the biobrick concept of iGEM because it allows him to “understand the biological concepts visually in a way that is more comprehensible and creative.”

Raida

Drew Endy's DNA factory up and running

A project discussed for many years by many scientists, including MIT researcher and facility director Drew Endy, BIOFAB has now been up and running for the last 6 months. The (B+) International Open Facility for Advancing Biotechnology (BIOFAB), the world's first DNA factory, aims to offer scientists and students certain well-characterized pieces of DNA that can be assembled in different ways to carry out various functions. A real-world offshoot from the undergraduate iGEM competition, the BIOFAB is currently carrying out the characterization and standardization necessary to turn past iGEM projects into a true, world-wide synthetic biology registry. Read the full Nature News article, or check out the BIOFAB home page.

Dave

iGEM Team Helps Prevent Rogue Use of Synthetic Biology

Synthetic biology is a constantly developing field. New things are popping up every day. Here's an example, published yesterday in Science Centric:

A team of students from ENSIMAG, an engineering school in Grenoble, France, and Virginia Tech is using bioinformatics to implement federal guidance on synthetic genomics. The students' work will help gene synthesis companies and their customers better detect the possible use of manufactured DNA as harmful agents for bioterrorism.

Kudos to the VT-ENSIMAG_Biosecurity team! We wish you the best of luck.

Read the full article here.


Patrick