Team:TU-Delft/Team/Carsten

Carsten Blom

Week 26

This week we discussed everyone's knowledge of the project so far using a compilation of pictures illustrating several parts of the project. Listing all open questions gave a nice overview of what still needs to be understood in more detail. At the same time we defined what experimental steps to take and made a rough cost-time estimate. Using this setup we went to work on the lab manuals. We also visited the kick-off meeting for "Meeting of Minds", where we met representatives of the "young" divisions of Hollands main political parties. In september we will hold a debate on Synthetic Biology with young scientists and politicians.

Week 22

This week was mainly research into the final systems we will use for localization and internal activation of Mfp-5. Building on the work of iGEM team Denmark 2010 we will use transmembrane Tar-receptors to form fusion proteins with Mfp-5 resulting in polar clusters of adhesiveness. Internal Tyrosine activation may be achieved easily within the cytoplasm, but periplasm would require use of the same Sec transporter as Mfp-5, possibly fused to TonB for inner membrane integration.

Also a modeling plan was set up, consisting of several parallel parts mainly aimed towards determining the thresholds of required binding strength, and the major factors affecting those thresholds.

Week 21

This week all literature had to be available on friday concerning localization of Mfp-5. The focus soon fixed to use of the polar clusters affecting the signaling pathway for flagellae. The transmembrane receptors may be a nice target. The sequence for cloning the BH4 pathway genes was constructed and reviewed by several advisors.