Team:SCUT China/Judging
This year, we have spent so much unforgettable time and full energy on this project and have gained many meaningful and exciting results. The harvest is far beyond achieving each medal and award criterion to us. We have decided to show the relevant contents of the awards on this page to further prove that we have met the necessary requirements.
Bronze Requirements
1. Registration and Jamboree Attendance
We register for iGEM, have a great iGEM season, and attend the Giant Jamboree.
2. Competition Deliverables
We successfully created our team wiki, poster, and presented at the Giant Jamboree and submitted Judging Form on time.
3. Attributions
We have created our attributions page which include each member's contribution and the help we got from others.
4.Project Inspiration and Description
See where we get our inspiration and how we achieve our goal.
5.Characterization
We have added quantitative experimental characterization data to existing Parts from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts.
(1)BBa_K1675002
(3)BBa_K2411004
Silver Requirements
1.Validated Part
New BioBrick Part of our own design that is related to our project works as expected.
(1)BBa_K3100011
(2)BBa_K3100017
(3)BBa_K3100140
2.Collaborations
We have co-hosted two forumwith Hong Kong_CUHK which we have posted on iGEM wiki. Also, team Fudan and SYSU-Medicine have built in-depth communication with us in terms of experiment and Human Practices.
3. Human Practices
In the process of our project, we have conducted a full social investigation and got significant feedback of our project and on the productization of the results in the future.
Gold Requirements
1. Integrated Human Practices
Our human practice is a mirror to our project, as we were constantly improving our project, and we further purpose a versatile pragmatic socialization (VerPraS) theory of synthetic biology firstly based on the HP feedback.
2. Improve a Previous Part or Project
We have created a new stronger T7 promoter Part BBa_K3100022 that has a functional improvement of an existing Part BBa_J64997，and produced experimental data of both parts in comparison.
3. Model
The optimal promoter strength combination is obtained by mathematical model which can reduce the work of manual screening the optimal combination of promoters and lay a foundation for expanding the capacity of transcriptional regulation library in the future.
4.Demonstrate
Check how our engineered system work under realistic conditions. Our system comply with all rules and policies approved by the iGEM Safety Committee.
Special Prizes
1.Integrated Human Practices
To date, a lot of products have been proposed in numerous fields by iGEM teams, but only few of them have been applied in our lives. What we consider is that maybe an effective strategy for introduction of synthetic biology into life should be proposed, that enhancing the transform project achievements into the market. We explored the social significance of the project in combination with the actual situation of the projects and innovatively proposed VerPraS (versatile pragmatic socialization) theory of synthetic biology originally, discussed the nature and social relationship of the projects. At the same time, we have proposed the project publicity and science popularization strategy of "spreading science by culture and art", and have established Sarasvati design co., Ltd to carry out practical exploration which has proposed some solutions to the popularization of scientific research results. We have applied our theory to our project, expected it can serve more projects.
2. Model
We hope to change the acid tolerance of E. coli by regulating the expression of gadB, gadC, yabS and katA. First, we constructed a transcriptional regulatory pool --VerProS pool -- with an output capacity of 10000. We changed the promoter strength of the four genes, recorded the final OD600 of the strain under the same initial growth condition, and considered the orthogonality and dynamic range of Toehold Switch. Finally, the optimal promoter strength combination was obtained through mathematical modeling. To this end, we have established the BP neural network model based on genetic algorithm and have added simulated annealing algorithm into the updating phase of genetic algorithm population, which can reduce the work of manual screening the optimal combination of promoters and lay a foundation for expanding the capacity of transcriptional regulation library in the future.
3. Entrepreneurship
Founded in June 2019, Sarasvati design co., Ltd, is a company based on modern Internet and modern design technology, based on the field of innovation and entrepreneurship, focusing on science communication. "Cultural communication science" as the core concept of the company, according to the needs of customers, use artistic transformation to make customers’ research and products can be conveyed in a richer and more vivid way, so as to provide more professional, rigorous and artistic design services. Customers purchase services, we provide customers with a variety of planning, design services, so as to achieve profits, and take science into people's lives, promote human development. At present, Sarasvati has received more than 10 orders from synthetic biology field, sports science field and other fields, accumulated relevant design experience, and is actively exploring how to more effectively communicate the design method of science now.
Part Awards
1.Best New Basic Part--BBa_K3100017
GadB is one of the acid tolerant factors. In our project, we get this gene from E. coli K12 MG1655 and put it in the vector called pET30a. We transform it into E. coli K12 MG1655-T7 RNAP which is our project engineering strain. After transformation, the acid tolerant of the E. coli K12 MG1655-RNAP was significantly improved.
2. Best New Composite Part--BBa_K3100140
We have built our acid tolerant working part which insert different Toehold switchs before the acid tolerant genes to activate their expression in response to cognate RNAs (Trigger RNAs) with arbitrary sequences. The acid tolerant working part play an important role in VerProS system which can fine regulation of 4 acid tolerant factor. After screening, we can obtain the strongest acid-tolerant strain.
3. Best Part Collection
BBa_K3100100-BBa_K3100139 are composite parts which are the combination of 4 different Triggers and 10 unique T7 promoters. Through specific design of Fusion Sites, these 40 parts will be randomly combined by Golden Gate assembly. Up to 4 different Triggers driven by 10 unique promoters are expressed from one plasmid and finally a pool called VerProS with a storage capacity of 10000 is obtained. VerProS pool can simultaneously optimize up to four genes in a system. Particularly, this versatile library can be applied to fast optimization in different systems without having to build ad hoc libraries, which can greatly reduce manpower and costs. Here, we demonstrate the versatility of this approach by using the pool for fine regulation of four genes (which is a composite part named BBa_K3100140) to enhance the acid tolerant of E. coli.