Difference between revisions of "Team:BGU Israel"

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<h2> <span class="mw-headline" id="PhyscoFilter_.E2.80.93_Clean_different."> Cancer &ndash; what is the problem? </span></h2>
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<h2> <span class="mw-headline" id="PhyscoFilter_.E2.80.93_Clean_different."> The Boomerang system: </span></h2>
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        <p>Despite the huge investment in research and the development of a variety of treatment methods, cancer is still a major cause of death in the world.  
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<p>Despite recent treatment advancements, cancer is still a major cause of mortality worldwide. One of the fundamental problems preventing the development of effective therapy is the difficulty to target cancer cells exclusively.  
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            <br /> Today, both surgical and pharmacological treatments against most types of cancer are not accurate enough to identify and treat the disease on a cellular level.
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  <br />In Boomerang, we're engineering a genetic device based on a simple concept of AND logic gate: the activation of our CRISPR/Cas9-based system is dependent on the existence of two cancer-specific promoters that control the expression of Cas9 and gRNA, and the combination of these two will occur only in cancer cells. CRISPR/Cas9 system allows several applications of Boomerang: 1) disruption of genes essential for cancer survival; and 2) activation of suicide genes, or color proteins for cancer cell detection (e.g., for complete surgical removal).  <br />Our system can be potentially designed according to unique characteristics of a patient's tumor, paving the way to personalized medicine. We hope that our strategy will change the approach to cancer treatments.</p>
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            On the other hand, novel biological treatments being developed were only found effective for a relatively small number of patients.
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            <br />In cancer, many cellular and molecular processes take place, enabling the tumor to develop and spread in the body.
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            <br />We believe that it is possible to take advantage of the many typical biological mechanisms of cancer cells, by developing a synthetic biology-based system for identifying and treating cancer on a cellular level.
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            Together as a team, we developed a modular system which identifies numerous genetic changes in cancer cells and responds by activating a synthetic machine that executes a cell suicide program or enables color-based "tagging" of the cells for tumor detection, ensuring complete surgical removal.</p>
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Revision as of 09:16, 16 September 2015

Team:BGU Israel
Project description
Achievements
Entrepreneurship
Practices and Polices
Safety

The Boomerang system:

Despite recent treatment advancements, cancer is still a major cause of mortality worldwide. One of the fundamental problems preventing the development of effective therapy is the difficulty to target cancer cells exclusively.
In Boomerang, we're engineering a genetic device based on a simple concept of AND logic gate: the activation of our CRISPR/Cas9-based system is dependent on the existence of two cancer-specific promoters that control the expression of Cas9 and gRNA, and the combination of these two will occur only in cancer cells. CRISPR/Cas9 system allows several applications of Boomerang: 1) disruption of genes essential for cancer survival; and 2) activation of suicide genes, or color proteins for cancer cell detection (e.g., for complete surgical removal).
Our system can be potentially designed according to unique characteristics of a patient's tumor, paving the way to personalized medicine. We hope that our strategy will change the approach to cancer treatments.