IGEM:Projects categorized

Browsing all the available projects from the past years is becoming a big task. A categorized list of the projects will hopefully provide a better overview making this task easier. This is just a start-up, so please add projects and categories to complete this list.

2009 Competition

Health & Medicine

• Restoration and maintenance of homeostasis through oscillations between dampening pathologic inflammation and immunosuppression - Stanford 2009

Energy

• Conversion of lactose into ethanol - Pavia 2009

Environment - sensing or remediation

• Production of color pigments in response to different concentrations of an inducer - Cambridge 2009

Information processing

A cell-to-cell communication system that allows for the propagation of a set of instructions coded onto a plasmid - TUDelft 2009

Foundational research

• A “bio-screen” of voltage-activated yeast cells, where every “cellular pixel” produces light - Valencia 2009

Manufacturing

• Versatile protein production and delivery platform for targeting the intestine. Modules include drug production, self-encapsulation, and genome deletion. - Imperial College London 2009

2007 Competition

Health & Medicine

• A synthetic biology approach against HIV - Ljubljana 2007
• Cost-effective red blood cell substitute constructed from engineered E. coli bacteria - Berkley UC 2007
• Targeting a specific subset of cells with a virus, based on (m?)RNA or protein expression profiles - Caltech 2007
• Repairing damaged heart cells by integrating healthy ES-cell-like cells that are autonomously differentiated towards cardiomyocites into the heart - Bay Area RSI 2007
• Cancer specific RNAi mediated cell destruction - Princeton 2007
• Phage that select against bacterial resistance (Project 1 of 2) - Rice 2007
• Designing a biological system to sense environmental glucose concentration and decrease the level of glucose by releasing insulin - Taipei 2007
• Using bacteria to bind to targeted cells in a body, and under influence of enough bacteria (quorum sensing) evoke a desired response (like: kill the bad cell) - Harvard 2007
• Using an AHL sensor (molecule secreted by biofilm microorganisms) and GFP reporter to detect biofilm formation in catheters. Imperial College London 2007

Energy

• Production of butanol - Alberta 2007
• Efficient pathway for the biosynthesis of bacteriochlorophyll - Berkley LBL 2007
• Harvesting cellulose and light to power butanol biosynthesis - Virginia 2007
• Solar-powered bacterial fuel cell - Duke 2007 (4th Project)

Environment - sensing or remediation

• A yeast sensor for real extra virgin olive oil - TIGEM - University of Naples 2007
• Cellular lead sensor - Brown 2007 (project 1)
• Sense and remove Mercury ions from contaminated water through a two cell system - MIT 2007
• A microbial biosensor device assembled with ion channels for iron detection under UV irradiation and different levels of oxygen - Colombia-Israel 2007
• Quorum-sensing coupled with the repressilator - McGill 2007
• A biological breathalyzer - Missouri Miners 2007 (project 2)
• A biosensor device for detection of several metals simultaneously - Prairie View 2007
• Bioplastics Synthesis - Duke 2007 (3rd Project)
• Integrated Sensor-Executor Proteins and Molecular Switches - Freiburg 2007 (1st Project)
• Biological radiation sensor (Project 2 of 2) - Pennsylvania State 2007
• Quorumtaxis: combining quorum sensing with chemotaxis (Project 2 of 2) - Rice 2007
• Create a copper biosensor, that would sense copper ions in growing media (based on a water sample). - Saint Petersburg 2007
• Engineer a strain of bacteria that could produce a signal in response to the presence of cyanide -Southern Utah 2007
• Using a sensor for organic pollutants coupled to electron carriers/export as reporter in an electrode setting allowing for the use of electrical measurements for presence of pollutants - Glasgow 2007
• Using chemotaxis with a variable inducing ligand to swim up concentration gradients of the ligand. Lethbridge 2007

Information processing

• Realization of a genetic circuit able to implement the functionality typical of a Schmitt Trigger - University of Bologna 2007
• Tristable switch - Brown 2007 (project 2)
• Divide-by-two circuit - Michigan 2007
• A biological timer - Missouri Miners 2007 (project 1)
• Manipulate E. coli into mathematics problem solvers - Davidson Missouri 2007
• Provide a new method for building up a fully extensible bio-logic circuit in bacteria - USTC 2007
• Create a device which behaviour resembles an electronic comparator - Valencia 2007
• The goal of this project is to design a circuit element called a half adder - Waterloo 2007
• Proof of the bottum-up designer strategy applied by synthetic biologists. Done by measuring responses in an open- or closed-loop response system - Bangalore 2007
• Building a printer of a laser and E.coli producing agarase upon excitation with the laser - Calgary 2007
• Create a Mexican wave pattern by the change of colors - Turkey 2007 (project 1)
• Bacterial communication with light - Duke 2007 (2nd Project)
• Division PoPper - Edinburgh 2007 (1st Project)
• Educate the E.coli System - ETH Zurich 2007
• Construct a biological device to imitate the function of the diode - Tianjin 2007
• Make a bacterial society that follows Pareto's principle as an ant society does - Tokyo Tech 2007
• Build a bacterial (E. coli) neural network composed of two cell types - Toronto 2007

Foundational research

• Explore artificial transcription factor (ATF), a trans-regulatory element, for controlling genes - Wisconsin 2007
• Using a protein scaffold to rewire a MAP kinase signalling pathway - UCSF 2007 (project 1)
• Building a new organelle for synthetic biology - UCSF 2007 (project 2)
• Directed evolution by error-prone PCR and screening methods - Boston University 2007
• Marimo-ish gathering of bacteria - Chiba 2007
• Engineering fruit fly behavior by remote activation of neurons involved in reward and punishment - CSHL 2007
• Transport specific metal ions from a specific location to another on the surface of engineered bacterial cells - Turkey 2007 (project 3)
• Simulate the competition between two different warrior cell types - Turkey 2007 (project 2)
• Model the dynamics of the spread of an epidemic within a population - Virginia_Tech 2007
• Electric field-activated transcription factor - Duke 2007 (1st Project)
• Self Flavouring Yoghurt - Edinburgh 2007 (2nd Project)
• Biobrick compatible strategy for fusion proteins - Freiburg 2007 (2nd Project)
• Fluorescent activity assay of RING Ubiquitin Ligase - Mississippi State University 2007
• Design of a Synthetic Multicellular Bacterium - Paris 2007
• Towards differentiating cells within a bacterial colony - Peking 2007
• Elimination of diauxic growth (Project 1 of 2) - Pennsylvania State 2007
• A game of Bacterial warfare - Purdue University 2007
• Formation of E.coli scaffolds by making cells join. This is achieved by pointing two light beams at the cells which induces adhesion to each other. Melbourne 2007