IGEM:China workshop/Participants

PKU Team

• more information for PKU

Team members

Just on the day that the iGEM China ambassadors came to the Peking University, Dec 28th, 2006, we, approximately ten undergraduates and a couple of graduates of PKU,founded the iGEM PKU team. After several times of expansion, 20 students and 2 leading teachers and several other advisors are actively contributing to our team, yet formal enrollment has not been ruled out.

The two leading teachers of our team are Prof. Yiping Wang from Life Science College and Dr. Fangting Li from Center for Theoretical Biology. They will not only provide us with beneficial instructions through out the competition, but also will represent our team to attend “Teach the teachers” this June and lead us to the jamboree held in MIT this November. Besides the two teachers mentioned above, three additional advisors, Prof. Qi Ouyang from Center for Theoretical Biology as well as College of Physics, Dr. Luhua Lai from Center for Theoretical Biology and College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering as well, and Prof. Jin Xu from School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, would like to make joint efforts to help us with more constructive directions, too. Since our team is under rapid development, it is believed that a increasing number of teachers would join us in the future.
Student members of our team include 3 Ph.D. candidates and 17 undergraduates with a variety of majors, including physics, chemistry, biology. With further development of iGEM-PKU, students of the other department might also join the team. More details are available on our Wiki: http://wiki.igempku.cn/index.php/Student_members.

Team activities

 Dec. 28th 2006 iGEM-PKU was founded and the organization of team activities was primarily discussed
 Jan. 7th 2007 the first preparation conference for iGEM-PKU was held and the following contents were discussed, including
 How to manage iGEM-PKU efficiently
 the schedule and the fashion of regular team activities
 Funds raising
 Seeking various kinds of academic suppo

 Jan. 14th , 2007 the first team journal club was held
 Jan. 21st, 2007 against the freezing weather, the second seminar was held enthusiasticly.
 Mar. 3rd, 2007 weekly journal club with only PKU team members attending was determined to be one regular form of team activities .
 4 weekly meetings has been held, concentrating on the discussion of following topics: the canonical papers of synthetic biology, the winning projects of past competitions, presentations of optional ideas for PKU team.

In order to improve the performance of iGEM-PKU both systematically and sustainingly, the team has applied to the university for the foundation of “iGEM society”.

We have already gone through the first two checkups and are now preparing for the final examination diligently. If we succeed, all team routines will be proceeding under the name of PKU-iGEM, offering convenience for the advancement of our competition and further propagandization of synthetic biology in Peking University.

Project Ideas

In the past 5 weeks, our weekly journal has been focusing on the discussion of project ideas. We have proposed 6 projects and many more are being prepared. The full list of proposed ideas can be visited at our Wiki: http://wiki.igempku.cn/index.php/Project_ideas . This part of the wiki is under extensive development and is updated on a daily basis.
Below, the abstract of the very first proposed and the best prepared idea is posted, as an example: An in vivo evolution approach towards the discovery of novel ligands at orphan G-protein coupled receptors Directed evolution is a technique often used to optimize biological parts for a desired function, despite the laborious manual screen of mutants iteratively. We proposal to develop a standardized in vivo evolution technique in yeast cells using human B cell AID gene with which many genes can be optimized for a certain function and genes with novel functions can be discovered. In particular, we plan to apply it to the discovery of ligands for orphan G-protein coupled receptors(GPCR), using GFP expression controlled by MAP kinase pathway as a target function, automatically screened by FACS. If succeed, the possible large amounts of ligands we discovered will be good candidates for neurological drugs, and the technique developed will greatly enhance the development of synthetic biology.
Here are the title of a few more:
 Study on the regulatory network of genetically engineered macrophage
 Utilizing the E.coli SOS system to achieve fast response
 Implementing a hop count in E.coli to demonstrate amorphous computing
 Enable E. coli to gather protein molecules
 Rapid and high throughput dead-or-alive selection of fluorescent C.elegans

Online Resources

Our wiki is at http://wiki.igempku.cn . You can get a great deal of information involving basic team background and latest news for our activities. We contact with each other through Google Talk: igem-beijing@googlegroups.com, we also have a website for this e-mail collection: http://groups.google.com/group/igem

-beijing

THU Team

Introduction

As the school motto “Self-discipline and Social Commitment” reflects, Tsinghua University iGEM 2007 team is focusing on endeavor and creativity as well as teamwork

and responsibility in the process of cooperating with the others to accomplish a goal. The team consists of two supervisors, three advisors, eight members and the

desire to explore the world of synthetic biology.

Team Composition

Supervisors

Prof. Chen Guoqiang Dr. Xu Feng

Advisors

Liu Zhe: PhD student in Laboratory of Structural Biology, Tsinghua University Shi Zhenyu: Senior undergraduate student majoring in fundamental science (Chemistry and Biology) Song Xindong: PhD student in Medical Systems Biology Research Center

Team Members

Chen Chen: Senior undergraduate majoring in Biology Dong Peng: PhD student in Medical Systems Biology Research Center Jiang Ming: Junior undergraduate majoring in Electronic Engineering Liu Yexing: Junior undergraduate majoring in Biology Li Keyu: Junior undergraduate majoring in Biology Yu Zhou: unior undergraduate majoring in Biology Zhao Xinyu: enior undergraduate majoring in Biology Zhou Lijun: Junior undergraduate majoring in Biology

Lab

Prof. Chen Guoqiang kindly provides us working space and reagents for experiments in his lab of Microbiology, Tsinghua University

Preliminary Proposals

• E. coli Communicating Chain Construction

How much can we disturb or control the communication between microorganisms in tremendous amount? Perhaps a chain carrying signals that we want to bruit is possible

to be constructed in the society of E. coli. Then we can gain a closer insight into those tiny lives.

• E. coli Oscillator

According to former work in the realm of Oscillator, we are inspired to design special gene sequence that can endow E. coli periodical reaction in certain forms to

certain signals, which can be derived from other cells or be opposed artificially.

Contact Us

The following is the contact of the Tsinghua University iGEM 2007 team. Please feel free to contact us, we would be more than happy to communicate with you. Your

advice and suggestions are welcome and would be highly appreciated. Address:
Tsinghua University IGEM Team C/O Liu Yexing, Undergraduate Student in Biology, Tsinghua University, Department of Biological Science and Technology, Haidian District, Beijing, 100084, China
Email:yexing.liu@gmail.com
Tel:+86-010-515-34104
Mobile:+86-138-1177-1678

TJU Team

Team one

• Team one

Introduction

With the great passion, innovative ideas and team work spirit, students from Tianjin University Team 1 are actively participating in this competition. We explain the

iGEM competition as an international platform to show our great passion, energetic, most creative. Sound financial and technological strength is what we rely on to do

a good job in this competition. We all have great power and are filled with confidence. Just to say “Go on, we will succeed”.

Team members:

Supervisors:

Prof. Yuan Yingjin

Dr. Cheng Jingsheng

Dr. Song Kai

Advisors

Li Bingzhi: PhD student majoring in Biochemical Engineering

Wang Honglei: Graduate student majoring in Chemical Engineering

Hu Bo: Graduate student majoring in Biochemical Engineering

Wang Xing: Graduate student majoring in pharmaceutical Engineering

Zhou Jian: Graduate student majoring in pharmaceutical Engineering

Shi Lei: Graduate student majoring in Biochemical Engineering

Team Members

Sun jingjing: Senior undergraduate majoring in Bioengineering

Li Xiaoqian: Senior undergraduate majoring in Bioengineering

Zhu Manli: Senior undergraduate majoring in Bioengineering

Zou ruiyang: Senior undergraduate majoring in Molecular Science and Technology

Qiao Kangjian: Senior undergraduate majoring in Chemical Engineering

Chen Zheng: Senior undergraduate majoring in Chemical Engineering

Lab and Funding

Prof. YJ Yuan kindly provides experiment environment and most of the financial support.

Also our team gets the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Tianjin University.

Primary proposals:

Synthetic Biology related technology

• Logic gate(AND,OR,NOT,NAND,NOR,XOR):We combine some of them to construct several devices, such as DOUBLE CONTROL SWITCH, NUMERUS COMPARATOR, INCONSISTENT CIRCUIT, SR

FLIP FLOP, ENCODER, CLOCK, much of them come from the electrocircuit consideration.

• Simulate reversible reaction: We try to simulate the reversible reaction with considering the impact of catalyzer, temperature, concentration and pressure. To use

two fluorescence reporters, we can monitor the reaction direction by the colour varying.

• System controlling lytic/ lysogenic states: By cell-to-cell communication, we try to construct a system that a signal from a cell can control the lytic/ lysogenic

states of cell infected by phage and using different reporter according to the different state.

• As we all know, time delay is very common in biology system. Is there some method that we can take use of this time delay? So we can use it to all the situations

change is needed. Because biological system is unpredictable and couldn’t control strictly as electrocircuit, there are still many problems we must face. We proceed with all the ideas

but focus on the most feasible.

Other inspiration

Besides the logic application in our biological machine, we also hope to find other inspiration in energy and medicine issues. Surely, we get closer and closer to the

final project.

We are looking forward to your attention to our team

Team two

Introduction

We come from Tianjin University, one of the most famous universities in China. Our team is composed of fifteen creative young people with enormous passion for

synthetic biology. The solid foundation of professional knowledge provides us firm confidence, and the enthusiastic research spirit gives us the courage to challenge

the mystery of science. We believe that everything can be possible with our endeavor and wisdom.

Members

• Graduates
  

Binbin Han PHD of biochemical engineering
Shuobo Shi PHD of biochemical engineering
Hui Wang PHD of biochemical engineering
Tong Hao Master of biochemical engineering
Zongbao Zheng Master of biochemical engineering
Yanfeng Xue Master of biochemical engineering
Hao Ma Master of biochemical engineering
Jie Zhang Master of Zymolysis engineering

• Undergraduates
  

Xiaowen Hou major in biological engineering
Liwei Chen major in biological engineering
Hong Zhang major in biological engineering
Liujie Huo major in biological engineering
Bo Wang major in biological engineering
Yifan Yuan major in biological engineering
Shunhua Yang major in biological engineering

• Faculty Advisors

Prof. X.M. Zhao
Prof. Q.Z. Wang

Lab and funding

Prof. X.M. Zhao is kind enough to provide ‘wet’ experiments environment and ‘dry’ experiment equipment for us.

Project 1

ene circuit The aim of our project is to simulate electrocircuit in series and parallel connection by gene elements. Series circuit and parallel circuit are the simplest circuits

in physics. There are three eletments in it: switch, power and resistance. What we should do is to construct three kinds of bacterials functioning as the three

elements in electrocircuit, seperately: one for power, the other two for resistances(R1 and R2). Light is used as a switch. The gene circuit is connected when the

bacterials are supposed to light so that the flurescence proteins with different colors in the three kind of bacterials are all expressed, while the circuit is cut

when we turn the light off. In series circuit, If we cut any of the resistances or power, it will result in the disconnection of the whole circuit, while in parallel

circuit, the lack of one resistance will not influence the other one. Three different kinds of HSL are used as the cell to cell signals.

Project 2

Bacterial neon light In this project ,we use gene circle to create a bacterial neon light with three different colors. the first repressor protein, LacI from E. coli, inhibits the

transcription of the second repressor gene, tetR from the tetracycline-resistance transposon Tn10, whose protein product in turn inhibits the expression of a third

gene, cI from λ phage. Finally, CI inhibits lacI expression, completing the cycle. The three repressors are connected with red, green, and yellow luc genes (a kind

of luminescent gene) seperately. With the oscillation of the gene circle, the three colors of light will show up circularly, just as a neon light.

Contact

The following is the contact of the iGEM TJU 2007 team. Your advices and suggestions are welcome and highly appreciated.
Address:Room 310, Chemical Engineering Department, Tianjin University . Tianjin .P.R.China (300072)
Email:haotong2001@sina.com
Tel:+86-022-27892075

Team three

Coming from various departments of Tianjin University, which is famous for precise attitude in researching, we formed this vigorous team three months ago. Albeit we have different background in university, there is one thing in common, that is, great interests in synthesis biology and eager to build a genetically engineered machine by ourselves. We know exactly how difficult it will be. However, we have a lot of confidence, because we believe in ‘attitude is everything’, and every problems will be solved with our zest.

Member

• Graduate students:
  

Lin Liu, PHD student in Laboratory of Biochemical Reaction Engineering
Lijuan Ma, PHD student in Laboratory of Biochemical Reaction Engineering
Jingyu Wang, PHD student in Laboratory of Molecule and Cell Biology

• Undergraduate students:
  

Wei Zhu, major in Biochemical Engineering
Zhe Liu, major in Biochemical Engineering
Luo Ji, major in Biochemical Engineering
Zhe Chen, major in Biochemical Engineering
Yanran Li, major in Molecular Science and Engineering

• Mentor:
  

Professor Jianping Wen

Lab and funding

Professor Jianping Wen and Yingjin Yuan are very interested in our ideas, and suggest that they will provide us everything we need in both experiment and simulation.

Proposal

Ever since the first discussion among our three teams on Jan. 23rd, we have learned a lot about the synthesis biology and have discussed a lot about our own project. Meanwhile, we at times invited the other two teams to have some discussion so that we would both obtain process. Up till now, ample preparation has been made in both experimentation and simulation. We are apoise to face the future challenge, and we have confidence to smile in the end of the 2007 iGEM.

Contact

The following is the contact of the iGEM TJU 2007 team. Your suggestions will be expected and appreciated.
Address:
Room 108, 20 Building, Tianjin University Tianjin, P.R.China (300072)
Email:
igem2007@163.com
Tel:
+86-22-27890492
Mobile:
+86-13752564295

USTC Team

Introduction

We come from USTC, one of the most famous universities in China. We are the combination of the exact tradition of USTC and the exact vitality of the young. Rigorous

daily schoolwork has provided us with a solid foundation of basic knowledge, and an innovative spirit enables us to stand on the frontier of the modern science. Our

belief is'Never to say failur'.

Member

• Graduates
  

Zhan Jian : PHD candidate in Key Laboratory of Structural Biology
Ding Bo: PHD candidate in Key Laboratory of Structural Biology
Ma Rui: PHD student in Laboratory of Nonlinear Chemistry
Ma Xiaoyu: PHD student in National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale

• Undergraduates
  

Su Xiaofeng: major in molecular and cellular Biology
Liu Ziqing: major in molecular and cellular Biology

• Faculty Advisors
  

Prof. H.Y. Liu
Prof. J.R. Wu
Prof. Z.H. Hou

Lab and funding

Prof. J.R. Wu is kind enough to provide ‘wet’ experiments environment.
Our team is sponsored by the National Science Funding and the CYL committee of USTC.

Proposal

Despite the exciting advancement in recent years, phage contamination is still one of the headaches that nowadays the food and fermentation industries mainly

confront. Some strains with genotype like TonA is resistant to T1-like bacteriophages, but the productive performance of these strains is low because of the slow

growth rates. Therefore, the producer is facing a dilemma: how can we deal with the strains lacking phage resistance, but with high productivity, and strains with

certain kind of phage resistance but the productivity of which is rather low.
To help those unfortunate guys, we aim at developing an inexpensive system to offer the industries a new kind of strain that can grow fast and without phage

infection.
There are two different strategies for the active defense:
One is the ‘Signaler Strategy’, that is, let a cell infected with bacteriophages send a signal telling other cells that the enemy is coming. In this way the others

will switch on the expression of TonA , making themselves resistant to the enemy.
There are two key points for this strategy. Firstly, what can be used as such a signal? It should be rare in the environment in most occasions, and its number ought

to increase fast after the infection. Secondly, how to switch on the expression of TonA? The response should be as quick as possible, or the enemy will invade in

without any resistance!
The other strategy is the ‘Sacrifice Strategy’, that is, when the phage begins to reproduce itself, the apoptosis system of the host will be switched on. The host

commits suicide to avoid the propagation of the phages, and without influencing the others.
Also, there is a key point for this strategy, that is, how to make the reaction as quick as possible .And another one is how to keep the apoptosis off under normal

conditions.
Both of the strategies might be applied to reinforce the self-defense ability of cells.

Contact

The following is the contact of the iGEM USTC 2007 team. Your advice and suggestions are welcome and highly appreciated.
Address:Room 456, Life Sciences Building, University of Science and Technology of China Hefei, Anhui, P.R.China (230027)
Email:zhanjian@ustc.edu
Tel:+86-551-3603754-1
Mobile:+86-13856942160