Team:Oxford/Test/Design

Design

Introduction

Designing a novel method of getting our bacteria into the urinary tract was a big consideration during the beginning stages of our project. The approach of delivering our bacteria directly through the catheter into the bladder would probably be the most effective. However we found that the biofilm also forms on the outside of the catheter so in our design we attempted to tackle the biofilm from outside and in. In order to get a better idea about what catheters that are used in everyday life are actually like we decided to purchase one. We got a 14F female catheter that was ready for use. Our first impressions were that is was shorter than we expected and therefore we would need to have a much better gene expression so we were able to produce enough protein to destroy the biofilm. Also the catheter is extremely thin (which we expected but its always different in the flesh) so the beads would have to be very small in order to get them into the catheter.

Catheter Design

Semi-Permeable Membrane

Biobeads

Coating

Manufacturing

Made with love by Oxford iGEM