Team:Oxford/Achievements

Achievements

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 enzymes are by E. coli and are also secreted across the cell membrane. They break down the biofilm just as we predicted.
  • 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.

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.

BBXXXXX is our first part.

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.

Here it is!

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.

Questionnaires sent to the public informed our track choice. Feedback from experts informed our design as it improved iteratively.

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

We characterised part BBxxx for Warwick here.

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

Part BB --- contained an additional secretion tag, which we characterise here.