IGEM:MIT/2005/Direct communication of antigen and receiver

The first way we might build such a system involves the direct communication of an antigen, which can be just about anything, with the cell; this is accomplished by attaching an antibody to the cell in such a way that the binding of an antigen to the antibody initiates a signalling cascade that terminates in PoPs. The main benefit of such a system is that it can stand alone, and is thus a viable solution to problems such as "how do we deploy our biosensor into a lake where it can respond to toxin levels?" The main issue to be dealt with is that this system is in some ways less modular; of course, anyone could just follow our steps and hook up their scFv sequence of choice.