Team:Concordia-Montreal/Gold
***iGEM 2019 Gold Medal and Nominated for Best Presentation!***
Check out our graduate program in Applied Synthetic Biology!
Concordia.ca/synbioapps
We have completed the following gold criteria:
*Integrated Human Practices & Ethics
Considerations which arose through Real Time Technology Assessment of our design and through diverse public interviews were brought back to our weekly meetings. Public opinion and ethical considerations changing our design. For example, our initial design encompassed a patch which would change colour if fentanyl was detected, alerting others. We discovered through human practices that people did not want it to be public, so as to keep their illicit drug use private. We therefore put the colour change on the underside for first responders instead and focused more on the electrochemistry which could communicate with our app on your cellular phone. Interviews also brought to light new applications and customer bases, such as doctor/patient agreements for those being administered fentanyl medically or in rehabilitation for addiction.
Those are but a few examples of how Human Practices were Integrated into our design.
*Modelling
AmilCP Chromoprotein:
Link to Modelling
We modelled the diffusion of amilCP chromoprotein in our hydrogel to determine if our colour change was viable. If the chromoprotein diffused too quickly, the colour would be too thin, whereas too slowly, it wouldn't be distinguishable by the human eye. Running algortihms built in collaboration with iGEM ULaval, we obtained results which show minute diffusion over time. The area would be relatively small for the human eye to locate. A Red Fluorescent Protein (RFP) would be of more use over such a small area. We then chose to shift our focus to electrochemistry, which promises a faster signal. See our diffusion model..
Circular dichroism was done to probe the structural components of amilCP. Experimental structural analysis provides valuable information for protein binding, folding, and interactions due to charged surfaces (ie in our hydrogel) to name a few. Our experimental results are consistent with the computational model generated by iGEM Ionis 2017. Circular Dichroism.
Electronic Device Structure
We modelled the structure of the electronic device to determine a suitable physical configuration of the different circuit board components. The location of the various connectors were determined based on the model. The battery connector's relative position to the microcontroller was adjusted after the creation of the model. The model is critical to avoid spatial conflicts between the various components before committing to the manufacture and assembly of the electronic device. The model saved us from avoidable design mistakes due to the lack of spatial representation of the electronic device in the design phase. Link to Model.