Team:UCL/STI

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UCL iGEM 2016 | BioSynthAge

STI Detecting Lube

Grey Love: Lube

When talking about ageing most of the diseases and implications that come to mind are quite obvious: loss of sight and hearing, loss of mental capacity, arthritis and many more. One that doesn't come to mind very often are Sexually Transmitted Infections, such as chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhoea. The fact of the matter is though that between 2007 and 2011 the number of chlamydia and syphilis increased by 31% and respectively 52% in the American population over the age of 65.

This may initially come as a surprise but it is a reality nowadays, especially in elderly care facilities. With people living for longer, medication countering the effects of erectile dysfunction and a lot of free time it can be crudely compared to an American frat house. This might not yet be seen as a problem as people of all ages should be able to enjoy themselves however they want to. Yet the real problems start when there are secondary effects from the STIs, such as arthritis, vision loss and other symptoms. Those will usually be classified as just age-related problems and treated as such, rather than being treated appropriately.

The idea

As with age the flora of the vagina changes and many post-menopausal women suffer of vaginal dryness , we have come up with the idea of developing a lube that can detect STIs through a colour change. This will allow the elderly population to continue having their fun whilst keeping them safer. The idea is that when the lube comes into contact with some of the STIs it would change colour, allowing both parties to get a proper check-up and treatment.

This will be realised using a bacterial system that can live within lube and can detect STIs and then produce a colour pigment to show whether an STI is present or not. To allow for bacteria to live in lube we are using a previous iGem Part:BBa_K729001, called irrE,, which protects the bacteria against salt, oxidative and thermal shock . If this irrE allows for the bacteria to better live within lube we can then introduce the detection system.

  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/emanuel-sex-and-the-single-senior.html?_r=0
  2. https://www.womens-health-concern.org/help-and-advice/factsheets/focus-series/vaginal-dryness/
  3. http://parts.igem.org/Part:BBa_K729001