Vitrum comes from the latin word for glass which derives from our method to induce thermal stability of the Newcastle virus by surrounding it by a “glass shell.” We will be testing three different transformation methods to protect the live Newcastle Disease vaccine. Read more
We will test our vaccine formulation by combining various tardigrade proteins, that we have expressed in E.coli, with the virus in our Newcastle disease vaccine. The virus in the vaccine we will be using is live virus that will have its infectivity measured, in chicken myocyte cells, before and after exposure to heat to observe if our formulation is heat stable. Additional experiments include, characterizing our various tardigrade proteins and comparing them to other protection methods such as trehalose, and iron sulfur crystals. Read more
Biobrick parts are standardized DNA sequences that can be used to build larger synthetic biology circuits. For our project, we will be creating six new basic biobricks for the iGEM registry. All of our biobricks have been codon-optimized for E. coli. Read more
The 2019 UCSC iGEM team is making a heat-stable formulation of a Newcastle disease vaccine with the goals of improving food availability and empowering women in agricultural communities. In the future, we hope this formulation can be used to protect human vaccines in order to provide resource constrained areas the necessary protection they need to live a prosperous life. Read more
