Team:Manchester
Welcome to iGEM 2016!
Welcome to the University of Manchester’s iGEM 2016 Wiki page! We are a team of 11 undergraduate students all studying at the University of Manchester based in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology under the supervision of Professor Rainer Breitling and Professor Eriko Takano.
Science Behind AlcoPatch
Controlling alcohol consumption can be difficult, especially amongst students in the UK. An alcohol patch that generates a visible colour change according to blood alcohol concentration could be used to monitor the level of intoxication in a person. Having an indicator to show how intoxicated a person is could help reduce undesired consequences of being too drunk
Our Project Plan
It is known that the ethanol concentration in sweat is linearly related to the blood alcohol concentration. Based on this, we aim to develop an ethanol biosensor by using synthetic biology with two separate methods to measure intoxication levels. The first mechanism involves the usage of alcohol oxidase (AOX) in a cell-free system to oxidise ethanol to acetaldehyde that produces hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$) as a by-product. $H_2O_2$ is used as an oxidising agent by horseradish peroxidase (HRP) to convert ABTS to produce luminescence. The second mechanism involves activation of ethanol sensitive alcR in engineered Escherichia Coli (E.Coli). The activated transcription factor then activates the promoter alcA leading to the expression of chromoprotein.
We will be updating the Wiki with much more information as we progress through the project so check back often!
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