Team:Manchester/Medal

UoM iGEM | Project Cutiful

MEDAL CRITERIA

Here be found: things we did, things we thought we did but didn’t do and had to rush to do, things that we thought we hadn’t done but actually did - and the last one felt like a present from ourselves unto ourselves.

Registration and Giant Jamboree Attendance
Competition deliverables
Attributions Attributions
  • Clearly distinguished between student’s work and what we got help with.
  • Mentioned every person that has helped us along the way
  • Noted training offered
Project Inspiration and Description Project Description
  • Clearly showed a concise description of Cutiful
  • Detailed explanation of our inspiration and why it is important
  • Appropriate references
Characterisation Contribution
  • Characterised 3 parts: BBa_J23102, BBa_J23106, and BBa_K199118 by measuring RFU and normalising it with Optical Density at 600 and 660 nm.
Validated Part Fragrance Colours
  • Expression and characterisation of codon optimised and His-Tagged TAL, C3H and COMT enzymes,the first three enzymes in the vanillin biosynthesis pathway.
  • Prove of their functionality by production of p-coumaric acid, caffeic acid and ferulic acid, the first three intermediates in the vanillin pathway, detected and quantified using UPLC-MS/MS.
  • Characterised mRFP1 containing a C-terminal secretion signal (HylA) and proved it through SDS-PAGE and qualitative data.
Collaboration Collaboration
  • Collaborated with six different projects, providing expertise in website coding, modelling, and sharing results.
  • Gained a broader, more accessible audience through our Edinburgh overgrad collaboration of our questionnaire.
Human Practices Human Practices
  • Attended the community science festival at Manchester museum where we interacted with the public sharing ideas and gaining feedback
  • Contacted several stakeholders which gave us industrial insight into our product
  • Discussed the science behind our project with scientists at the synthetic biology symposium in Manchester.
Integrated Human Practices Human Practices
  • Integrated feedback from the public by modelling a kill switch.
  • Integrated feedback from stakeholders by testing our bacteria in different Salt and Shampoo conditions
  • Integrated feedback from the scientists at MIB by implementing the fragrance branch of Cutiful
Improve a Previous Part Human Practices Colour
  • Achieved improved expression of sfGFP by changing the promoter from T7 (BBa_I746909) to pTet (BBa_K2906000). This allows sfGFP to be more tightly controlled and to express higher levels of visible fluorescence, especially in the first few hours.
  • Transferred BBa_I746909 iGEM provided construct into a different backbone in order to provide a fair quantitative comparison.
Model your project Modelling
  • Chromoproteins chosen based on modelling of molar extinction coefficients
  • Fragrance molecule vanillin chosen based on modelling of a static isochoric sphere as the headspace, concentrations of various odorants were calculated at detection level. Vanillin held the lowest concentrations of all.
  • tested fragrances.
  • Implemented a previous model to test for allergenicity of our compounds
Demonstrate your work Demonstration
  • We demonstrated that E. coli DH5⍺ and BL21(DE3) attach to hair
  • We proved that our system works through coating natural hair samples with our coloured bacteria
  • We proved that bacteria do not die under realistic conditions: swimming in chlorinated or saline water, or with the use of shampoo