Team:Pretoria UP

SYNCHRONIZED, CONDITIONAL, IRREVERSIBLE CHEMOTAXIS PROGRAMMING...


Animation by Schae Ind

Project Description

We decided to improve the 2011 WITS-CSIR_SA “biotweet” project based on chemotaxis reversal in semi-solid media using riboswitches. The Pretoria_UP project “Switch coli” enhances several limitations on the original design, incorporating quorum sensing, an “AND” logic gate, alternative designs for a recombination-based toggle switch, and an irreversible reporter system for detecting chemicals of interest. The enhanced prototype would allow for motile bacteria to “tweet” information to a destination, and for a reply tweet with new information on the state of the destination to be sent back in a synchronized, conditional manner.