Synthetic BiologyPresentation by Brown iGEM Team

Building Biotechnology

Bacterial Photography

E. Coli that smell!

Biofuels

GreenFuel Company

Invade Cancer Cells

1. Aerobic Conditio

ns

2. Low Oxygen Detected!

3. INVASION!

How do we build these?

Parts

Devices

Systems

DNA:

AATGAATATCCAGATCG

Biological Part:

PromoterPromoter

Biological parts are building blocks made of

genetic material

---

Different Parts connect together

PromoterPromoter--- ---GeneGene ---TerminaTerminatortor

This is a device

MIT Parts Registry

A database with standardized genes for easy assembly and reusability.

MIT Parts Registry

From about 100 parts in 2004

to about 2000 parts in 2007

But still a lot of work to be done!

Characterization

•How does this part work?

•What does it do?

Recap

•A set of tools and parts to engineer biology

What is iGEM?•Internationally Genetically Engineered Machines Competition

•Brown’s Team: 7 undergraduate students

Our Projects

Lead Sensor

•Lead contamination is health problem

•Expensive to sense lead

•We need cheap solution that doesn’t take long

Lead Sensor

Tri-Stable Switch

Tri-Stable SwitchTurn on/off three different proteins in cell

Differentiation of stem cells

Tissue Engineering

Synthetic Biology at Brown

University•Synthetic Biological SystemsProfessor Wessel

•BiomechanicsProfessor Richardson

•BiomaterialsProfessor Webster

Our Sponsors