Team:WITS-CSIR SA

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Abstract

E.coli has chemoreceptors, and proteins which act downstream, to regulate the bacterium's proportions of runs and tumbles controlling its movement towards an attractant. The CheZ protein dephosphorylates the CheY protein, allowing the bacteria to run instead of tumbling. We used CheZ mutants, unable to move, and only allowed the expression of the CheZ protein on a riboswitch sensitive to theophylline. This allows the bacteria to be artificially sensitive to it. Once the attractant was reached, these genes were switched off and the bacteria was sensitive to another attractant, allowing it to return to its start position.
This dude has some chalk. Mostly I don't have any content to put here.
This is the same thing as the last...
A board ... with writing.
Reading something.
Boomerang Bacteria
We have decided on a project manipulating bacterial chemotaxis. What is chemotaxis? Well, it's the ability of bacteria to swim towards something they're attracted to and swim away from chemicals that are potentially dangerous to them. We will be engineering bacteria to be attracted to a substance, reach the source of that substance and once they are there, turn off their attraction to this substance and become attracted to another substance. This means we can send a bacteria out to detect something. Once it's found its highest concentration, it will swim back to the start to report back. This project has potential applications in mining, medicine and water treatment!
Meet the team
The CSIR Wits South Africa team consists of six enthusiastic undergraduate students each having their own area of expertise. Four of the members are studying science and two are studying engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. The biologists are from the schools of Molecular and Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine and Hematology. The team has two engineering students, one studying information engineering and the other, chemical engineering. This team is a dynamic one where each team member has something unique to offer to the competition.
Software
We created the following software during the competition.



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