Team:USP-Brazil/MedalCriteria
✔ Registered for iGEM 2019. ✔ Having a great iGEM 2019 season. ✔ Attending the iGEM 2019 Jamboree.
✔ Wiki. ✔ Poster. ✔ Presentation. ✔ Judging Form.
✔ Attributions.
✔ Inspiration: The team inspiration came from the problem that budget is a bottleneck for the development of different projects in Brazil. Thinking about that, the team decided to focus in the industry, more specifically in bioproduction, since by alleviating the costs of production process and promoting sustainable process, it can align with the 4th industrial revolution, contributing for the improvement of Brazil economy. ✔ Description: Built a genetic circuit that can switch between two different states of activation with just a single input of blue led light, analyze the expression pattern of chemicals and light promoters.
The team utilized the ratiometric promoter characterization reporter, a new system of promoter analysis developed by 2018 iGEM USP BR and winner of 2018 special prize Best Measurement, for the analysis of pBAD an pLacI, contributing that way to an existing Part from the Registry. There was also contribution for the won ratiometric promoter characterization reporter, by analyses of its pattern of expression without the presence of any promoter. In other words, the team contributed with: ✔ pBAD (BBa_K808000) http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K808000 ✔ pLacI (BBa_K731500) http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K731500 ✔ Ratiometric promoter characterization reporter (BBa_K2771020) http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K2771020
For the 2019 project, _genSwitch, we created 3 new validated parts for registry: ✔ Single blue light sensor (BBa_K3095003) http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K3095003 ✔ mTagBFP2 (BBa_K3095008) http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K3095008 ✔ Repressors feedback loop (BBa_K3095011) http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K3095011
This year we have collaborated with: ✔ Team iGEM Toronto. ✔ Team iGEM Moscow. ✔ Team iGEM Washington. ✔ Team iGEM USP-SaoCarlos-Brazil. ✔ Team iGEM Amazonas-Brazil. ✔ Team iGEM UFGRS Brazil
For human practices we focused in public engagement. Our inspiration came from a context of distrust in science in Brazil, which leads to problems such as the measles outbreak, which showed to us the necessity of discussing biotechnology topics with society. In order to that, we first needed to improve our science communication, by talking with specialist of science communication: ✔ Interview with science communicator Professor Lygia Pereira. o How to communicate science with society. o What is the role of researcher in science communication? ✔ Participation in “biocientista mirim” workshop. o inspirations and tips in how to make biotechnology workshops for society. After improving our science communication, it was time to put everything into practice: ✔ Workshops with the educators of ONG “Projeto Arrastão” o Workshop about transgenic and vaccine. ✔ Workshop with children from ONG “Grupo Gema” o Workshop about hygiene and microorganism. Inspired with all of our actions and because of the lack of Latin America iGEM representation, we are also helping with the assembly of the first brazilian high school iGEM team. ✔ Assembly of iGEM High School team at Bandeirantes.
For integrated human practices, we discussed with a variety of specialist, about the applicability of our project: ✔ University of São Paulo Club of Synthetic Biology. o Gave valuable feedbacks of experiments that could diversify the 2019 project. Also suggested that _genSwitch costumers, were in the industrial market. ✔ IPT, research institute specialized with public and private assistance. o Gave valuable feedbacks about the applicability of the project in bioproduction process, giving real industrial problems, helped with the chemical’s inductors estimative of cost and recommended that the team should get in contact with companies outside of the University. ✔ Superbac, bioproduction specialized company. o Made us reflect about reasons as to why our project would be better than the already used in the industry and gave us the opportunity to test our project in their bioreactors, in the future. ✔ Sakata Seed, food specialized company, that don’t use transgenic. o Gave suggestion of the applicability of the project associated with the use of sunlight, and in the alcohol industry. ✔ Zambon, pharmaceutical company. o Gave suggestion, in how to improve presentations for companies, explained to us the importance of a patent and indicated the interest of our project in respiratory tract diseases. ✔ Bayer, agro company. o Saw applicability of the project in bioremediation and , in the far future, in the agriculture. Also taught us about bureaucracy involved with protection of intellectual protection in the market. We also consulted specialist ✔ Core US CEO, Gustavo Belchior, scientific communication specialist. ✔ Biolambda CEO, Caetano Sabino, led device specialist. ✔ PUC researcher, Cristiane Tavolaro, led light specialist. After meeting with some companies, we realized that maybe our project could be patentable, so we entered in contact with USP Agency of innovation, AUSPIN, where we learned about intellectual property.
We developed a model utilizing differential equations to simulate the behaviour of our circuit. With this model we’ve been able to predict the behaviour of our model on different circumstances.
Therefore, utilizing pre-existent data we were able to determine the best parts to construct our circuit!
With that in mind, we’ve been also able to show that our circuit ideally works as one bit.
After our results we also refined our model utilizing our new data as proxy to measure errors, making their predictions more accurate