Team:Uppsala-Sweden/Project/Overview

Project overview

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Main Project

Regulation of gene expression by light is a milestone in synthetic biology. This rapidly developing field has attracted lots of attention in the recent years. Light regulation introduces noninvasive, direct and advanced spatiotemporal control of engineered biological systems. The aim of this project is a continuation of developing the above mentioned regulation method.

In 2005, the world’s first light-sensing bacteria, “coliroids”, were engineered by scientists at UT Austin. Since then, as more and more naturally occurring light-sensing microorganisms are being discovered and sequenced, synthetic biologists realize there is a whole range of natural light-sensing systems at their disposal. Most of the light-sensing systems developed thus far focus on studying one light-sensing system at a time, characterizing its activation light spectra, active state, etc. There has been a lack of focus on building light-sensing systems that sense multiple wavelengths, until very recently. The ultimate objective is to introduce control of gene expression with multiple light wavelengths and demonstrate multidimensional light control as well as fine tunability of this system by making the engineered bacteria exhibit image based on three basic colors.