What We Did In This Summer
In this summer, we aimed at degrading
PET biologically with two kinds of newly-found enzymes
PETase and
MHETase.
We modified the enzyme
PETase to improve its activity and used R-R (Reporting and Regulation) system to make the expression visible and regular.
We used microbial consortia to continue degrading the products
TPA and
EG to carbon dioxide.
We also introduced Cyanobacteria to the microbial consortia so that the system can work with only optical energy and carbon dioxide. We also use
CFPS(cell-free protein synthesis) system to assay the enzyme activity.
In the Human Practice part, we spread out our project and the glamour of synthetic biology and receive financial help from some corporations.
Team Members
Yuan ma, the advisor of our team. he tirelessly and patiently assisted with us in project design, experiment operation, wiki construction, human practice and modeling.
Haoran Ding, the student leader of Team Tianjin this year, is in charge of the global managment, R-R system part of experiment, and part of human practice.
Ji Yu，designed and constructed most of the wiki pages,a member of the modeling and jamboree presentation.
Siyuan Zheng, one of the principles for experiment operation.
Ziang Xu, one of the principals of experiment and project design. Besides, he also offered help for wiki construction.
Pengzhi Mao, chief modeling constructor and reporter-regulation system project designer，who was also partly responsible for experiment operation.
Hanyu Zhang，responsible for translating team members' manuscripts or materials into English，also provided help in consulting theses.
Bo He, main principal for experiment operation, responsible for the CFPS system part, including project design and web page writing of the CFPS part.
Le He, one of the principal experiment operators and wiki assistant.
Mingyu Du, responsible for experiment operation, project design, human practice design and providing information for wiki construction.
Peng Wang, the cheif designer of the regulatory path by TPA, who also offered assistance to operation and project design.
Liangyu Qian，one of the primary experiment operators and project designers. Moreover， she also offered helps to wiki construction.
Jiawei Chen，main principal for experiment operation. Also, he was partly responsible for project design and wiki assistance.
Mingfang Zhang, one of the principals of Human Practice and she also partly constructed our wiki.
Zhimeng Xu, the major art, poster,presentation designer, and one of the primary experiment operators.
Liyi Xu, main principal for human practice and one of person for presentation.
Zhaoxi Chen, one person for human practice and in charge of the experiment and wiki construction.
Chen Xin, main principal for experiment operation. Also, he was partly responsible for project design and modeling.
Haipeng Yu, co-designer of protein engineering, major molecular experiment operator, Wiki designer.
Jian Song, co-designer of protein engineering, one of the principals in presentation and wiki construction, also partly responsible for experiment operation.
Yu Zhang, a primary experiment operators and designer of bacteria consortium, and a multifunctional assistant who like helping other partners conduct their experiment. Besides, he is also responsible for modeling.
Mingzhe Han, main principle for establishment of Bacteria Consortium and constraction of overexpression vector in P.putida KT2440
Guangyu Zhao, as a high school member, assisted our human practice and project spread.
General Support
Tianjin University, for their support in the competition.
School of chemical engineering and technology, Tianjin University, for their support in the competition.
Our instructor Prof. Yingjin Yuan and Dr. Bingzhi Li: A huge thanks for their constructive suggestions and meticulous guidance to our project.
Protein modification Support
Prof. Mingdong Yao, who helped us to analyze the stability of PETase, gave many advices and discussed with us the practicability of our principles of designing mutations of PETase.
Dr. Yi Wu, the man who generously shared restriction enzyme as well as watermelon, who gave us enlightening advices during showers, who got us a brand new microplate reader in the crisis, who helped novices to fix all kinds of experiment problems, and who supported the Tianjin iGEM team all the time.
Dr. ZeXiong Xie, who gave us advices and help on experiments all the time and supported Tianjin iGEM team.
Bacteria Consortium Support
Prof. CunJiang Song generously sponsored us with P.putida KT2440 and the shuttle plasmid pBBR1MCS-2 which can be transformed into P.putida by electroporation.
Prof. Aijun Miao generously sponsored us with Rhodococcus sp. Strain RHA1.
Prof. Rui Ban generously sponsored us with Bacillus subtilis DB104.
Prof. Tao Chen generously sponsored us with Bacillus subtilis 168 and its available plasmids pH12-p43 and pH13-p43.
Prof. Jun Yang shared us with ideas about experimental design and measurement.
Cyanobacteria Support
Prof. Weiwen Zhang who allowed us to use their laboratories and equipments, showed great patience when we occupied many of the facilities.
Dr. Jinjin Diao, at Tianjin University, helped us with his knowledge of Cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. He commented on our thoughts and ideas which helped us establishing the cell wall disruption process.
CFPS(cell-free protein synthesis) System Support
Prof. Dayong Yang Professor at Tianjin University. He commented on our thoughts about using the cell-free system to express our enzymes and ideas. He also offered us the plasmid pRset_CFP-1 and allowed us to establish the expression system in his Lab.
Yang Liu postgraduate student in Prof. Dayong Yang’s Lab, who offered the material such as lysate of E.coli, feeding buffer and so on.
Yannan Zhao postgraduate student in Prof. Dayong Yang’s Lab, who assisted us to do some experiments and instucted us to use the ELIASA (microplate reader).
Human Practice Support
GenScript sponsors us with 60000 CNY.
Synbio Technologies sponsors us with 15000 CNY.
AllTech sponsors us with 10000 CNY.
