IGEM:Caltech/2007: Difference between revisions
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[[Image:Caltech_igem_2007.jpg|right|250px]]The Caltech iGEM 2007 team is composed of four undergraduates from Caltech and one undergraduate from MIT. Team members are current juniors and seniors in biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, and biological engineering. The team was advised by three graduate students and three faculty mentors. | [[Image:Caltech_igem_2007.jpg|right|250px]]The Caltech iGEM 2007 team is composed of four undergraduates from Caltech and one undergraduate from MIT. Team members are current juniors and seniors in biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, and biological engineering. The team was advised by three graduate students and three faculty mentors. | ||
Our project attacks the following problem: can | <i>Our project attacks the following problem: can one engineer viruses to selectively kill and/or integrate into specific subpopulations of target cells, based on their RNA or protein expression profiles?</i> This addresses an important issue in gene therapy, where viruses engineered for fine target discrimination would selectively kill only those cells over- or under-expressing specific disease or cancer associated genes. An even more ambitious goal would be to <i>rewire</i> target cells, by integrating a small gene cassette which would modify the target cell's expression profile, possibly fixing a disease state. | ||
This is clearly an ambitious goal, so we brainstormed a simple model of this problem suitable for undergraduates working over a summer. The bacteriophage λ is a classic, well studied virus capable of infecting E. coli, another classic model genetic sytem. We therefore seek to engineer a λ strain targeted to lyse specific subpopulations of ''E. coli'' based on their transcriptional profiles. Together, λ and E. coli provide a tractable genetic system for this larger problem, while hopefully providing lessons applicable to more ambitious, future projects. | This is clearly an ambitious goal, so we brainstormed a simple model of this problem suitable for undergraduates working over a summer. The bacteriophage λ is a classic, well studied virus capable of infecting E. coli, another classic model genetic sytem. We therefore seek to engineer a λ strain targeted to lyse specific subpopulations of ''E. coli'' based on their transcriptional profiles. Together, λ and E. coli provide a tractable genetic system for this larger problem, while hopefully providing lessons applicable to more ambitious, future projects. |
Revision as of 12:26, 26 October 2007
The Caltech iGEM 2007 team is composed of four undergraduates from Caltech and one undergraduate from MIT. Team members are current juniors and seniors in biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, and biological engineering. The team was advised by three graduate students and three faculty mentors.
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