Team:KU Leuven
Patterns are fascinating, from the veins of a leaf to the stripes of a zebra, from a single cell to a whole organism. Patterns are found everywhere in nature, but how these are formed is not entirely clear. We, the KU Leuven 2015 iGEM team, decided to work on the fundamental mechanisms behind pattern formation. The way cells interact to generate a specific pattern has triggered our curiosity and added a new dimension to the way the patterns are looked upon. Our mission is to create different and astonishing biological patterns with engineered bacteria for a better understanding of nature with the prospect of applying the knowledge in industry.
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Project
We decided to work on the fundamental mechanisms behind pattern formation. We design two bacteria strains which interact with each other. To achieve our goal, the link between wet lab and modeling will be crucial to the successful design of our experiments.
Modeling
The modeling team fit models to the data obtained by the wet lab. Continuous and hybrid models will be used. Hybrid models are models which have a discrete and continuous part. Synergically, simulations from the cyber lab will aid tuning the experimental conditions that lead to the desirable patterns.