Difference between revisions of "Team:Heidelberg"

This year we, the iGEM team Heidelberg, want to take iGEM with our project back to the roots of biology. Billions of years ago small RNA molecules with catalytic activity known as ribozymes ruled the ocean and turned world from a pool of small molecules to a paradise for self-replicating lifeforms. Now in 2015 we want to be faster.

“The sea is everything. […] The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature. The globe began with sea, so to speak”, Nemo said while the “Nautilus” was cruising with a school of hammerhead sharks deep beneath the waves. And the captain was right. Deep in the ocean billions of years ago the miracle of nature took place as a pool of small molecules evolved to self-replicating lifeforms. The flagship role in this development was probably taken by the most versatile class of molecules in the history of life: RNA.

Allegedly various random nucleotides happened to be at exactly the right place at exactly the right point of time to form the first biocatalyst. Today we know those miracles of nature as ribozymes and suppose that they made life on earth possible. Millions and millions of years later we now want to facilitate those miracles into useful tools for todays’ world.