Team:UCL/James/Description
Project Description
BioSynthAge: Do not go gentle into that good night
We envision a time in which the human population lives a healthier life, for longer. We will use synthetic biology to ensure the ageing world population can both maintain their quality of life and extend their lifespan - increasing their ‘healthspan’. The health challenges currently posed by ageing are many and complex so we propose a suite of synthetic biology solutions to tackle these challenges. Our synthetic biology solutions will include, but not be limited to, the following:
Oxidative stress – the root of the problem
Oxidative stress underlies many of the health problems of ageing so we will develop a number of free radical mopping devices. These devices will include therapeutic bacterial chassis triggered by oxidative-stress to deliver free-radical mopping compounds. To lay a conceptual foundation for genetic tools that address ageing within human cells, we will also use gene-editing tools to map the relationship between telomerase expression and cellular robustness to oxidative stress.
The Mobile application
Popularization of Biology, Synthetic Biology and Safety
The mobile application that IONIS iGEM designed is available on all Android mobile phones. We designed this application in order to communicate and popularize Synthetic Biology. BactMan Adventures is a mobile application popularizing science through educative mini-games around the life of a bacteria. With it, you can discover key notions of biology through several mini-games in two distinct environments: the intestines and the iGEM laboratories. Apart front the mini-games, the application offers information about our team, the iGEM, and synthetic biology : introduction of iGEM and of the BioBricks, presentation of the IONIS iGEM team and of our Bioconsole project, glossary of technical terms...
