Team:Exeter/Description
Our aim:
'To design and characterise a toehold switch with potential to detect any given RNA sequence. Our immediate target is the detection M. bovis RNA in a safe, low-tech and cost-effective manner'
Project Description
The primary aim of our project is to design a toehold switch (a type of riboregulator) with the potential to detect any given RNA sequence, and to standardise it into a BioBrick for the future use by other iGEM teams.
Tuberculosis in cattle is a problem local to our region, Devon, causing devastating economic and personal losses to farmers in the dairy and beef industries. Therefore, the immediate application of our project is the detection of Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of tuberculosis in cattle, in a safe, low-tech and cost-effective manner.
In order to make this a simple test which can be used in the field, we are aiming to express it as a cell-free system. We hope to use a chromoprotein as an indicator, and subsequently characterise it for use in cell-free systems.
We are open to collaborations and would love to hear about other projects! The main themes we are working on are:
- Riboswitches (specifically toehold switches)
- Diagnostic testing for disease
- Tuberculosis in UK cattle
- Cell-free systems