iGEM Calgary | igem@ucalgary.ca | 403-210-8156 2
iGEM Calgary
HistoryEntering its fourth year, the University of Calgary’s iGEM team has an impressive track record.In 2006, our team participated in iGEM for the first time and earned the
"Conquest of Adversity"
award. The 2007 iGEM team won a
Gold Medal
and the
Best Poster Award
. Last year, weentered three iGEM teams from the University of Calgary: Wetware, Software and Ethics. At theiGEM 2008 Jamboree, our Wetware and Software teams were awarded
Silver Medals
,recognizing the University of Calgary as the best Canadian university at the competition.Mission StatementIn the long run, the University of Calgary’s iGEM team primarily aims to
build the SyntheticBiology community of Alberta to promote both academic and industrial undertakings
. Withrespect this year’s project, we are characterizing a bacterial cell-to-cell communication system tofacilitate the communal coordination of bacterial activities, giving way to numerous applications.The Project and TeamThe goal for this year’s project is tobuild a novel bacterial communicationsystem. Bacterial
cell-to-cellcommunication
was recentlydiscovered and has received muchinterest from the academia as well asfrom the industry. While bacteria maybe engineered to undertake a specifictask such as the manufacturing of atarget drug, promoting bioremediationor bioprocessing, because of theirsmall size, scaling up of theseprocesses remains a majortechnological hurdle. In an effort to
coordinate the target activities ofbacterial machines
, we are buildingup a natural marine bacterium’scommunication system (i.e. Autoinducer-2 signaling) in alaboratory strain of bacteria.The majority of pathogenic bacteria use the
Autoinducer-2 communication system
to cause a widevariety of human disease (e.g., cholera, strep throat and meningitis). The synthesis of thiscommunication system will allow us to better understand the system through which pathogenic
bacteria coordinate infections
and to use this system as a
novel target for antimicrobial therapies
.
Leave a Comment