Team:UCSC

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Welcome to UCSC iGEM 2015!

The University of California, Santa Cruz strives to be a world leader in the emerging field of synthetic biology. UCSC introduces and trains our most brilliant and motivated students in this field of research in in order to enhance impending scientific talents in America while creating an impact in society.

Project Goal

Over the course of the past several years, the fuels that are primarily petroleum based have become progressively harder to acquire, and the continued usage of these fuels has resulted in increased amounts of pollution due to their prolonged carbon chain and the fact that there has been an increased burning of these fuels. Based on these facts and this particular energy dense process, shorter carbon cycled biofuels have become a growing area of research. Given this, it would be ideal to improve upon an existing biological mechanism, making it viable for large scale production. We have devised a plan that suggests the expression of gene homologs associated with butanol production in other microbes. We hope to improve the efficiency of this process and create a more sustainable method of bio-butanol production.