IGEM:Harvard/2008

Congratulations to the Harvard team for winning the Best Energy Project and for being one of the 6 finalists at the Jamboree!!

The 2008 Harvard iGEM project is based on the ability to control and measure the electric current production in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. Multiple genes in Shewanella have been identified as playing a role in transferring electrons to solid substrates, thus generating an easily detectible electric current. Our goal is to be able to detect differences in current output by the activation and/or deactivation of these genes in Shewanella. To do this, we are using mutant strains of Shewanella which have one or more of these important electron transfer genes knocked out and are reintroducing the genes on an inducible plasmid. The electric current produced will be detected by a multimeter, and read by a computer, creating a computer-biology interface.

We are developing two inducible systems for electrical current production in Shewanella. The first is a chemically inducible system, where LacI or TetR repression of the current-production gene expression can be alleviated by the addition of IPTG or anhydrotetracycline, respectively. Our second approach is a light-inducible system based on the 2005 UT Austin biological camera. We are also considering a third approach using cI lambda which would be dependent on temperature.

Using one or both of these systems, we hope to be able to interact with engineered Shewanella in multiple anaerobic microbial fuel cells which we have built. Communication between the fuel cells and a computer then has the potential to be programmable into a game of sorts, such as Tic-Tac-Toe, in which the level of current production induced by a chemical or light input is understood by the computer as a "turn." This rudimentary game is just one of many possibilities for an inducible interaction between computers and bacteria.

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 Planning

News and Announcements

 * /Meetings/

Getting Started

 * /Background Reading/

Project Planning

 * /Brainstorming/

Doin' it

 * /Literature/
 * /Strains/
 * /Plasmids/
 * /Lab Notebooks/

For visitors

 * /Important Stuff/
 * iGEM 2008 Official Page
 * Harvard iGEM 2007 Official Page
 * Harvard iGEM 2007
 * Harvard iGEM 2006
 * Harvard iGEM 2005
 * SynBio Comic
 * NYT article (11/24/05)
 * Harvard iGEM 2008 Facebook Group


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 People

Students

 * Thilini Ariyawansa
 * Joy Ding
 * Dan Gong
 * Meng Xiao He
 * Amy Li
 * Erica Lin
 * Lauren Schumacher
 * Anna Marie Wagner
 * Sam Workman

Teaching Fellows

 * Remy Chait
 * Natalie Farny
 * Christina Agapakis
 * Jason Lohmueller
 * Kim de Mora

Advisors

 * Colleen Hansel
 * Peter Girguis
 * Christopher Marx
 * George Church (talk)
 * Jagesh V. Shah (talk)
 * Pamela Silver (talk)
 * Alain Viel (talk)

Education Advisor

 * Tamara Brenner (talk)


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 Links

iGEM and OWW

 * OpenWetWare Etiquette
 * BioBricks registry

Literature

 * Pubmed for Harvard PIN holders
 * ISI Web of Science

Tools

 * Alignment tool
 * NCBI Homepage
 * Plasmid Mapper
 * Excel &rarr; Wiki Table converter
 * DNA seq reverse complement
 * Blast 2 Seq
 * IDT Oligo Analyzer
 * DNA to Protein translator
 * Codon usage database

Info

 * Presentation Advice
 * 1 kb+ ladder
 * Buffer and gel tables


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