Team:ULaval/Achievements.html

Team:ULaval - 2019.igem.org

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AWARDS AND NOMINATION

Nomination for Best Model

Best New Application
Project

Gold Medal


ACHIEVEMENTS

We registered for iGEM, had a great iGEM season, and attended the Giant Jamboree.
We completed the following competition deliverables: Wiki, Poster, Presentation and Judging form.
We completed the Attributions Page.
We completed the Project Description and Inspiration Page.
Add quantitative experimental characterization datato an existing Part from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts.









Convince the judges that at least one new BioBrick Part of our own design that is related to our project works as expected.
We have significantly worked with multiple currently registered 2019 iGEM teams in a meaningful way.
See the Collaboration Pagefor more information.
We have thought carefully and creatively about whether our work is responsible and good for the world.
See the Human Practices Pagefor more information.



We strived to exchange as much as we could to any actors that could profit from our project A.D.N. We understood throughout the year that to manufacture technical objects is also to enlist or mobilize actors, to convince, to integrate their participation in our system, to adopt one’s point of view, one’s solution, one’s technique. At the earliest months of the development of A.D.N we brought together multiple experts of various fields to present our idea of what we wanted to achieve. This exchange confirmed most of what we had already planned but also helped us focus on the ideal path for our project. However, scientific expert opinions were not enough for us to truly reach the impact we want with A.D.N. We then opened a feedback loop with industry experts to identify the need for a tool like A.D.N. From it, we learned that A.D.N could truly impact communities by delivering a fast reading on-site and by integrating a full analysis process through an easy-to-use device. See the Human Practices Pagefor more information.
Our modelling approach is a comprehensive in silico characterization of the properties of toehold riboswitches. We started with 2D modeling, which allowed us to create a tool to design riboswitches with the appropriate secondary structure. Then, we simulated the binding of the toeholds to their targets to select toeholds that were predicted to bind accurately. Through a collaboration with Concordia, we advanced to 3D modeling with two different programs to have alternative structural models. We characterized the quality of these models and ran molecular dynamics simulations to study their stability through time. This allowed us to study the hydrogen bonds that maintain the hairpin stable throughout the simulation. Since the spontaneous unfolding of the riboswitch is undesirable, we identified the least stable hydrogen bonds as potential targets to improve toehold design. Overall, our model inspired our tool to design toeholds and produced targets for consideration when optimizing toehold design. See the Model Pagefor more information.
igem@bcm.ulaval.ca