Welcome to the Imperial 2008 iGEM project page. It's Wednesday, May 22 and a great day to read about an awesome iGEM project!
For the 2008 iGEM competition, the Imperial team is designing a biofabricator using the Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis as our chassis. We hope to exert fine control over its movement via a recently-discovered clutch mechanism, using light as our stimulus to localise the bacteria. We then intend to trigger production and secretion of a self-assembling biomaterial in a set 3D pattern.
3D bio-scaffold materials have many applications in tissue engineering. Our blue-sky aim is to synthesise a precise biofabricator that can accelerate tissue engineering processes, hence making a contribution to the field of regenerative medicine.
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This diagram gives an overview of how our system works. Initially, B. subtilis are motile and are not producing biomaterials. If we want to construct a bio-scaffold with an "I" shape in 3D, we shine a 3D hologram of the correct wavelength (red is used as an arbitrary example here) onto the growth medium.
Bacteria will sense that light and triggers start to produce a clutch molecule. This disengages the flagella from the motor quite quickly, rendering the subtilis stationary. Coupled with the clutch is a gene for expression for biomaterial synthesis. Should any individuals stray from the correct area, the clutch should disengage and material synthesis should stop.
We hope to build up our bio-scaffold material pixel by pixel in the defined area - the basis of our 3D biofabrication process.
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Imperial's 2008 iGEM team has received sponsorship from a number of generous companies...
