Difference between revisions of "Team:Stockholm"

Revision as of 22:13, 3 September 2015

Early diagnosis is important for patient prognosis. As a rule of thumb, the earlier a disease is diagnosed, the better the odds for recovery. Studies show that treatment for many different diseases (e.g. cancer) are more efficient when therapy is started at an early stage. Yet, reliable, sensitive and easily applicable diagnostic tools are still lacking.

iGEM Stockholm 2015, consisting of students from Karolinska Institutet and the Royal Institute of Technology KTH, is developing a novel technique to measure even small amounts of disease biomarker in body fluids. It's an "Affibody-Based Bacterial Biomarker Assay", and we call it ABBBA. As proof-of-principle, we wanted to sensitize E.Coli against the cancer biomarker HER-2 by creating a chimeric receptor. We used the Affibody molecule – a strong molecular binder – and the osmoregulator EnvZ originating from E.Coli. Exploiting the EnvZ-OmpR signaling cascade, we wanted to transduce a signal from binding into the cell. In our circuit, this event regulates differential expression of two quorum sensing molecules depending on the presence of the biomarker. A co-cultured strain will then detect these quorum sensing molecules express fluorescence.

In the time frame of the project, we synthesized three biobricks of a chimeric antigen receptor. We have not yet show the expression of the receptor in E.Coli TOP10 cells. We designed and characterized an OmpR-P dependent circuit to express GFP, which we later exchanged with a quorum sensing synthetase. Furthermore, we showed that our strain expresses RFP as a response to quorum sensing.

We have also cooperated on science and social issues with teams from Switzerland, Israel, Germany, France, Helsinki, Taiwan and Uppsala.

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+<p>Early diagnosis is important for patient prognosis. As a rule of thumb, the earlier a disease is diagnosed, the better the odds for recovery. Studies show that treatment for many different diseases (e.g. cancer) are more efficient when therapy is started at an early stage.  Yet, reliable, sensitive and easily applicable diagnostic tools are still lacking.</p>
-<h1> With “ABBBA” against Cancer </h1>
+<p>iGEM Stockholm 2015, consisting of students from Karolinska Institutet and the Royal Institute of Technology KTH, is developing a novel technique to measure even small amounts of disease biomarker in body fluids. It's an "Affibody-Based Bacterial Biomarker Assay", and we call it ABBBA. As proof-of-principle, we wanted to sensitize E.Coli against the cancer biomarker HER-2 by creating a chimeric receptor. We used the Affibody molecule – a strong molecular binder – and the osmoregulator EnvZ originating from E.Coli. Exploiting the EnvZ-OmpR signaling cascade, we wanted to transduce a signal from binding into the cell. In our circuit, this event regulates differential expression of two quorum sensing molecules depending on the presence of the biomarker. A co-cultured strain will then detect these quorum sensing molecules express fluorescence.</p>
-<p>Although many effective treatments for cancer are already available, it still represents the leading cause of death worldwide Why is this so? Many cancer types are very difficult to detect with nowadays techniques. This makes it for physicians and lab technicians difficult to catch the disease when it is the most vulnerable - right at its beginning. Studies showed that treatment for many different diseases, far beyond the cancer field, are more efficiency when the therapy is started in an early diseases state.Unfortunately, modern medicine has not yet found an appropriate diagnostic tool to overcome detection of small quantities of biomarkers.
+<p>In the time frame of the project, we synthesized three biobricks of a chimeric antigen receptor. We have not yet show the expression of the receptor in E.Coli TOP10 cells. We designed and characterized an OmpR-P dependent circuit to express GFP, which we later exchanged with a quorum sensing synthetase. Furthermore, we showed that our strain expresses RFP as a response to quorum sensing.</p>
-</p>
-<p>The iGEM Team Stockholm, consisting of students from Karolinska Institutet and the Royal Institute of Technology KTH, has made it their task to develop a novel technique to measure even small amounts of disease biomarker in body fluids, the “Affibody-Based Bacterial Biomarker Assay” (ABBBA). This method will be a biological measure to overcome thresholds of most chemically based diagnostic methods which are the canonical tool in clinics. In our new assay, we will sensitize bacteria specifically towards a certain disease antigen (e.g. HER-2, a marker for breast cancer cells) by creating a new fusion receptor consisting of a strong antigen binder, called Affibody molecule, and a membrane-standing signal transduction domain. As soon as the antigen binds to the Affibody molecule it will trigger a signaling cascade within the cell leading to an increased production of fluorescent molecules which can be read-out.
+<p>We have also cooperated on science and social issues with teams from Switzerland, Israel, Germany, France, Helsinki, Taiwan and Uppsala.</p>
-</p>
-<p>   With this assay, small concentrations of biomarker in body fluid samples, which are currently not measurable, will no longer be overlooked. This will hopefully lead to an earlier disease diagnosis and increased survival chances for the patients.
-</p>
-<p>Our project integrates the power of different fields of modern biology such as biomedicine, structural biology, biotechnology, molecular biology and bioinformatics. With the support of our universities and different external partner such as Atlas Antibodies, HealthCap, Sigma-Aldrich, Qiagen, GATC Biotech, BioBasic Ink., Eppendorf and Snapgene, we want to show a new way in early disease diagnosis.
-</p>
-<h2>Do you want to help?
-</h2>
-<p>Any and all sponsorship is welcome and appreciated! We have created a crowd funding site to help our friends, family, and fans support the project! Click <a href="https://www.rockethub.com/projects/58524-bacteria-that-detect-disease-an-affibody-based-bacterial-biomarker-assay#description-tab">here</a>to make a donation of any amount and be rewarded with cool Stockholm iGem swag!
-</p>
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