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Team:Penn State
Project Abstract
Ionizing radiation and radiation pollution is an important environmental problem that not only affects those working around radiation facilities, but those dealing with the aftermath of widespread nuclear disasters such as those at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor. Penn State’s team project designed and constructed a genetic circuit introduced into E. coli bacterial cells, in order to rapidly detect and report the presence of harmful ionizing radiation. We are working to create a robust and reliable biosensor that utilizes the lambda phage lytic-lysogenic switch as the radiation sensor. When the sensor detects radiation, it triggers one of three fast acting reporters we developed based on the concept developed by Imperial College’s 2010 iGEM team will be triggered. Each of the reporters features a different enzyme/substrate reaction (β-galactosodise/β-D-galactose, β-glucurodinase/β-D-glucuronide or C23O/catechol). We believe that the final construct may have the potential to rival current radiation detection methods, such as digital dosimeters.
Team
Ben Aloudir
Junior Biotechnology and Microbiology
Brian Avison
Junior Engineering Science
Alex Bina
Junior Bioengineering
Jamie Colleta
Junior Biological Engineering
Anisha Katyal
Senior Biology
Elyse Merkel
Senior Engineeing Science
Byron Pierce
Senior Chemical Engineering
Jim Rose
Senior Biotechnology
Lauren Rossi
Senior Microbiology
Vishal Saini
Senior Neuroscience
Kristen Salava
Kristen is a junior majoring in bioengineering. Outside of the lab, she spends most of her time with her sorority where she is the Vice President of Standards. She also is an International Envoy within the college of engineering.
Swati Prasad
SWATI PUT STUFF HERE!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike Speer
Graduate Student
Dr.Tom Richard
Advisor Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Dr. Howard Salis
Advisor Assistant Professor of Agricultural Engineering
Brainstorming
In the first few days of summer, we began discussing ideas for our project. Some of our first initial thoughts were to modify bacterial photosynthesis using the BCHM gene or to engineer a serotonin sensor. We thought about making a bacterial fuel cell by using Geobacter as a sacrificial anode. We also liked the idea of using bacteria to perform intelligent tasks, like mathematical arithmetic. The last idea we developed was to engineer a bacteria that would be able to detect radiation. The team spent a few days researching these topics to determine how plausible they would be and we finally unanimously agreed upon the bacterial radiation detector. With our full thoughts focused on this topic, we began looking into this idea further and discovered that the Penn State 2007 iGEM team had used the lambda phage system to also develop a bacteria that would test for radiation. However, they were not able to fully assemble their device or test it and we thought that we would be able to build upon their initial foundation.
Research
Woo hoo!
Media
Acknowledements
Affymetrix Life Technologies Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment Huck Institutes of Life Sciences
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