Team:Oxford/Achievements

Achievements

Awards

The iGEM judges give out a variety of awards to teams based on the strengths of their projects. To see the results for all teams in 2015, visit the iGEM results page. Here are the awards we won for our work. All nominations were in the undergraduate team category.

We received a Gold Medal award at the iGEM jamboree this year!

We were nominated for Best Health and Medicine Project.

We were nominated for Best Wiki.

We were nominated for Best Presentation.

We were nominated for Best Model.

We were nominated for Best New Basic Part.

Project Achievements

  • Using synthetic biology, we designed a way to treat catheter-associated urinary infections (UTIs) as an alternative to antibiotics. We engineered Escherichia coli to synthesize and secrete enzymes which would treat UTIs in a sustainable way. This is how we did it.
  • During our journey we added 12 new BioBrick parts to the iGEM registry. Check out our parts page.
  • Our parts worked. Our data shows that our proteins are synthesised by E. coli and are also secreted across the cell membrane. They break down the biofilm just as we predicted. Here are our results.
  • We maintained contact with the end user of our project. We gained approval of doctors, nurses and the patients of urinary infections today. Their suggestions and concerns influenced our design from the beginning. Take a look at our conversation.

Medal Criteria

Bronze

Register for iGEM, have a great summer, and attend the Giant Jamboree.

Our flights are booked, we've had a fantastic summer and we'll see you in Boston! Our team is registered here.

Complete the judging form.

Here you go!

Create and share a Description of the team's project using the iGEM wiki, and document the team's parts using the Registry of Standard Biological Parts.

From our landing page you can navigate to the project description and to the parts page.

Present a poster and a talk at the iGEM Jamboree.

Poster and talk are ready to be presented!

Attribute your project.

Our work is credited on our attributions page.

Document at least one new standard BioBrick Part central to your project and submit it to the iGEM Registry.

BBa_K1659210 is our first part. Our second and third parts are BBa_K1659088 and BBa_K1659501.

Silver

Experimentally validate that at least one new BioBrick Part or Device of your own design and construction works as expected. Document it and submit it to the registry.

Our parts include: BBa_K1659201 , BBa_K1659301 , BBa_K1659000 , BBa_K1659001 , BBa_K1659002 , BBa_K1659003 , BBa_K1659100 , BBa_K1659088 , BBa_K1659200 , BBa_K1659210 , BBa_K1659211 , BBa_K1659300 , BBa_K1659501 , BBa_K1659601

Demonstrate how your team has identified, investigated and addressed one or more questions relating to human practices.

The ethics of using modified bacteria are in debate. We went to doctors, nurses, urinary infection patients and the public to investigate if they would use a synthetic biology alternative to antibiotics. Our results are here.

Gold

Expand on your silver medal Human Practices activity by demonstrating how you have integrated the investigated issues into the design and/or execution of your project.

As we saw in our public survey, the ethics of placing engineered bacteria near or in the human body are contentious. The feedback of the public, experts and doctors informed our design from the beginning. Here is where our conversation began.

Collaborate with any iGEM team by characterising a part, debugging a construct, or modelling their system.

We mini prepped and PCR'd part BBa_K314110 for Warwick here.

Improve the function or characterization of a previously existing BioBrick Part or Device.

We used Part BBa_K729004 and added an additional secretion tag. See here