Difference between revisions of "Team:Ain Shams-Egypt/Description"

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<p class="text-gray"><b>Abstract: </b>The world population consumes approximately 3500 kWh/y/capita, increasing the demand for clean alternative energy. Recent improvements of photo-bioelectrochemical cells (PBEC), which harness electrons from photosynthesis to generate electricity, include synthetic attachment of chloroplast thylakoids to graphene electrodes. However, current attachment techniques require costly chemically synthesized linkers and PBECs are not yet efficient enough for industrial energy generation. In this project, DNA aptamers were designed and evaluated as low-cost biological linkers to tether plant photosystem II (PSII) complexes to graphene foam electrodes. Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment (SELEX), together with software developed by team Heidelberg 2015 (MAWS and JAWS) were used to develop PSII- and graphene-binding DNA aptamer candidates. This project aims to improve the attachment and orientation of the PSII complex to the graphene electrode for higher electron transfer efficiency, and serves as a prototype for the in planta expression of RNA aptamers for self-assembling thylakoid attachment.
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<p class="text-gray"><b>Abstract: </b>Treatment options for HCC are limited and often inefficient. Anti-cancer therapy faces major challenges, particularly in terms of specificity of treatment. The ideal therapy would eradicate tumor cells selectively with minimum side effects on normal tissue.
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So as a team that believes in synthetic biology we searched how could we help our community regarding this problem & we found that it’s been shown that circular RNA (circ.RNA) is associated with human cancers, & some studies have been reported in HCC. Circular RNA will be delivered as it is a new area of research with around 130 circular RNA sequence detected in HCC only less than 10% of these has been investigated and characterized through previous studies.
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Circular RNA is a type of RNA which, that forms a covalently closed continuous loop. This feature confers numerous properties to circular RNAs, many of which have only recently been identified. Circular RNAs have recently shown potential as gene regulators. Like many other alternative noncoding isoforms, the biological function of most circular RNAs are unclear, circular RNAs do not have 5' or 3' ends so they are resistant to exonuclease-mediated degradation and more stable than most linear RNAs in cells.
 
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<p>Photo-bioelectrochemical cells hold great potential as clean, alternative energy sources. A major barrier is the attachment, efficiency and cost of the system, making scalability unfeasible. Particularly, synthetic linkers used for thylakoid attachment to electrodes are expensive and difficult to manufacture at sufficient scale.
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<p>We are using mammalian cells to see the expression of the circular RNA in the deregulated micro RNA environment of the cancer cells in tissue cultures, prove their role and detect if they can serve as a biomarker in HCC, Detect the relation between its expression levels and rate of progression and the possibility of using it as a potential novel target for the treatment of HCC.
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<p>Our aim with this project is to design and construct an optimized photo-bioelectrochemical cell using an in planta RNA aptamer synthetic biology strategy for self-assembling attachment of plant thylakoids to graphene-coated anodes.
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Revision as of 19:58, 28 September 2016

WATTS-APTAMER - UP_PRETORIA iGEM

WATTS-APTAMER - UP_PRETORIA iGEM

Project Description

Abstract: Treatment options for HCC are limited and often inefficient. Anti-cancer therapy faces major challenges, particularly in terms of specificity of treatment. The ideal therapy would eradicate tumor cells selectively with minimum side effects on normal tissue. So as a team that believes in synthetic biology we searched how could we help our community regarding this problem & we found that it’s been shown that circular RNA (circ.RNA) is associated with human cancers, & some studies have been reported in HCC. Circular RNA will be delivered as it is a new area of research with around 130 circular RNA sequence detected in HCC only less than 10% of these has been investigated and characterized through previous studies. Circular RNA is a type of RNA which, that forms a covalently closed continuous loop. This feature confers numerous properties to circular RNAs, many of which have only recently been identified. Circular RNAs have recently shown potential as gene regulators. Like many other alternative noncoding isoforms, the biological function of most circular RNAs are unclear, circular RNAs do not have 5' or 3' ends so they are resistant to exonuclease-mediated degradation and more stable than most linear RNAs in cells.

We are using mammalian cells to see the expression of the circular RNA in the deregulated micro RNA environment of the cancer cells in tissue cultures, prove their role and detect if they can serve as a biomarker in HCC, Detect the relation between its expression levels and rate of progression and the possibility of using it as a potential novel target for the treatment of HCC.

WATTS-APTAMER - PRETORIA_UP iGEM