Team:SDU-Denmark

iGEM Team SDU-Denmark

Conjugaid

Making the world great again

Antibiotic resistance:
A looming global threat

Antibiotic resistance has become a major threat to global health, to health care systems, and to the wellbeing of the people affected by it. Patients who have been receiving treatment for an infection involving antibiotic resistant bacteria are at higher risk to be hospitalized in isolation henceforth. This propensity arises due to the incomplete elimination of antibiotic resistant bacteria which places the patients in a carrier state. Having patients in isolation is a huge financial burden to hospitals and to health care systems across the world along with it being mentally straining on the patients. The current treatment option for patients with antibiotic resistant bacterial infections is unsustainable, since it is based on a last-resort class of antibiotics that kills the natural and essential biota of the patient. Moreover, the last-resort class of antibiotics has also succumbed to development of resistance. Therefore, we must come up with a different approach to how we combat antibiotic resistance and treat patients that carry resistant bacteria.

Sensitizing antibiotic resistant bacteria with CRISPR

This is where the 2019 iGEM team of University of Southern Denmark (SDU) will come up with a solution. By using synthetic biology we want to design a donor bacteria with a plasmid containing a CRISPR/Cas-system. This CRISPR/Cas-system will be designed to cut and thereby downregulate the expression of specific penicillin- or carbapenem-coding resistance genes. The donor bacteria will transfer our plasmid, by conjugation, to both non-resistant and resistant bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. When the CRISPR/Cas-system is transferred to non-resistant bacteria it will have no effect as the single-guide RNA (sgRNA) will be very specific to the resistance genes of interest. In contrast, when our plasmid is transferred to bacteria carrying the specific antibiotic resistance gene, the CRISPR/Cas-system will target them and downregulate their expression. As a result, the bacteria will become sensitive to antibiotics, which has the potential to eliminate the antibiotic resistance carrier state of patients. Read more

iGEM Foundation

What is iGEM?

International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is the unofficial world championship of synthetic biology with more than 340 participating universities across six continents. The participants will create a project by applying biotechnology to combat some of the leading global issues such as: global warming and food and water security. iGEM ends with a giant conference in Boston USA where the participants will present their project to the attendees and a set of judges through a poster session, a presentation, and a project webpage.

Team picture

Our Team

We are 11 highly dedicated students from X different faculties of science, that are on our fourth and sixth semester of our bachelor. We have multiple supervisors that help and inspire us to. We represent our university, University of Southern Denmark Odense, at the 2019 iGEM competition. For us iGEM is an extracurricular activity next to our education, but through our dedication to resolving antibiotic resistance, comradeship and a great work environment, we will stay motivated in our busy schedule!

Public Engagement

We believe that biotechnology has the potential to create a better future by solve many of the UN’s social development goals. Therefore, it is imperative to engage the public and make them aware of its potential. We are doing so by communicating our knowledge to many Danish politicians. Furthermore, we are educating high school students in GMO and biotechnology through an E-book and having exciting workshops.