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Safety

Bio-Console Safety

Introduction

The Bio-console is a project developed to make science accessible for all and design for all. In this way the safety of the project is one of the most important part. Make sure that the bacteria are not able to be release in nature. To be sure that any bacteria are able to leave the game different measure have been taken; a kill-swirch, a killing-liposome and a hermetic microfluidic chip.

Kill Switch

Why do we chose a kill Switch ?

A kill switch is a genetically-encoded suicide trigger. This trigger can be a change in the environment which will make the organism’s life dependent on it. In our project, the change will be the presence or not of light. That is very interesting as we could create a game over in our Bio Console, once we trigger the bacteria’s death through light. Moreover, our team is really concerned about BioSafety. It is important for us to avoid any possibility of escaping from our microfluidic chip. The Kill switch would permit to contain our genetically modified bacteria into the chip through lethality.

How we design it

So we aim to construct an efficient kill-switch triggering by light based on the pDawn & pDusk - Toxin systems. In this way we will construct two different parts. The first one will be composed of pDawn and holin/endolysin. Toxins will be produced after light stimulation and induce lysis. The second part will be composed of pDusk and endolysin/holin complex, this will lead to the cell lysis when the bacteria won’t be exposed to light. This second part will be more difficult to characterized indeed all steps before characterization of the plasmid as plasmid amplification will have to be under light.

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Photoactivable liposome

Why do we chose a photoactivable liposome ?

In our Bio-Console, the gameover is based on the death of the bacteria and then the lose of fluorescence. For this we have to find an efficient system that will kill the fastest our bacteria. In this way we have introduce a photosensible liposome containing toxins. The liposome opening trigger by light allows relase of toxins and the fast death of bacteria.

How we aim to design it

The light-triggerable liposome will be made with photo-polymerizable phospholipid. It will contain toxins previously synthesized by resistant engineered bacteria. The liposome will be locked up in a bubble with our bacteria. In this way when a bright flash will appear, it will activate the liposome opening and release toxins. Finally toxins will quickly eliminate our bacteria, which will lose his fluorescence.

Microfluidic chip

Why do we chose a microfluidic system ?

How we design it

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Safety

Kill Switch

Photosensible Liposome

Microfluidics