Team:Washington

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Revision as of 18:01, 2 September 2011 by Hargem (Talk | contribs)

Current biofuels are made up of compounds that have properties that make them not a perfect substitute for gasoline. A much better solution would be to use bacteria to produce alkanes, the main chemical found in gasoline. This system would allow for the production of net-carbon neutral gasoline from organisms that can directly or indirectly utilize carbon dioxide. One of the goals of our team is to optimize alkane production in E. coli as a model for alkane production in such organisms.


A previous iGem team(Cambridge 2010) worked with luciferase, a protein from Vibrio that produces bioluminescence. This system has been shown to work well in E. coli, but has not been used in brewer's yeast(Saccharomyces cerevisiae). We are attempting to port the luciferase system into yeast, both to improve the engineering of yeasst using standardized parts, and to take steps towards producing beer that glows( because glowing beer would be awesome).


Celiac disease is a genetic disorder in which the human digestive system is unable to properly process gluten, a protein found in wheat. Several attempts to produce an enzyme capable of cleaving gluten have been made, but no viable enzyme has been fully implimented. Our team is attempting to engineer an enzyme capable of both surviving in the digestive system, and be able to still cleave gluten.


Several bacterial species are known to produce magnetosomes, organelles containing small magnetite crystals that allow for orientation to an external magnetic field. The genetic basis of magnetetosomes is not completely understood, but specific genes have been implicated in magnetosome formation. We are putting some of these genes into E. coli to attempt to show production of magnetosomes, or magnetosome intermediates.

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