Team:Cork Ireland/Design
Cost Analysis of the consumables required for detector construction.
In order to make the detector, a variety of reagents are needed and the protocols and experiments validating their use can be seen in the relevant sections. Our team decided to do a cost analysis on what was required in preparing the detectors used by our team throughout the summer and the cost of making the detectors sent to TCD and UCL in our collaboration. We felt it important to address the economics of making our prototype detector as this is a major factor in deciding whether or not the technology could be used on a large scale. The costs were broken down into the cost per detector and cost per detector reaction. Each detector contains 50 uL where 1 uL can be used for each diagnosis. As you can see below, the cost per diagnosis of the pathogens like HPV and TB is very low. Although it is hard to find reliable data of how much a single diagnosis costs due to the large amount of variables
Cost Analysis of the consumables required for detector construction
Testing of the kit
The kit was sent out to the TCD & UCL iGEM teams so that they could test the detector system. The results showed that the detector worked when shipped to another lab and that the results could be replicated in different locations. The only consumables required for the clinic or hospital setting are LB agar plates with the correct antibiotic and petri dishes. This allows for a very cheap diagnosis of pathogens like Mycobacterium tuberculosis. If the lab has an incubator, results could be seen overnight, for those labs without an incubator, results can be seen in perhaps 2-3 days which should be sufficient time for E. Coli to grow at room temperature.
The results show what our team would have expected to occur, the detector reaction where the correct target i.e nucleotide that is fully complementary to exposed single stranded detector region of the detector plasmid hybridises and anneals on. This plasmid is then transformed and recircularized in E. coli and the subsequent colonies grow.