Team:uOttawa
From 2011.igem.org
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding or brewer's yeast) has emerged as an important micro-organism in biomedical research and industry. Not only is this yeast an important model organism due to its homology to higher eukaryotes, but it sees wide commercial application as well. Small molecule biofabrication, biofuel production, food and beverage production all make heavy use of the humble yeast. For this reason we feel that it is essential that synthetic biology grapple with the manipulation, characterization, and optimization of gene expression and regulation in S. cerevisiae. To this end, team uOttawa set out to build a novel yeast chassis to allow the robust characterization of BioBricks in yeast. We have also submitted several BioBricks optimized for use in S. cerevisiae. Finally, we succeeded in developing a novel assembly protocol that will greatly improve upon existing BioBrick assembly protocols, not just for those manipulating yeast but for the whole BioBrick community. So raise a glass to your favourite single-celled eukaryote, and let yeast leaven your spirits.
Team
This year’s team brought together many students from different faculties. With fundraising, computer programming, website design and wet lab work there was a role for everyone.
BrickMason Assembly
Here we describe a convenient, efficient and cost-effective assembly method known as BrickMason assembly. Click on the image above to check out our animation and see how it works!
Results
Here we successfully demonstrate that BrickMason assembly can be used to assemble 6 brick constructs in just one days work. In addition, we were able to characterize 3 new BioBricks.
Parts Submitted
We submitted 8 new BioBricks to the registry this year.
Gears of Evolution
The uOttawa team has designed a 10 level game intended to teach and inform high school students about synthetic biology. This game is fully playable on our wiki, the iGEM community page and the Openwetware site Community Bricks. Click on the image above to play it and please give us feedback!
Sponsors
The uOttawa team would like to thank our sponsors for their generous support this year. Our sponsors graciously supplied us with lab equipment, reagents and funds necessary for the team to compete.