“Kill switch” is a blanket term often used to describe a system that causes controlled cell death and is used as a way to safeguard against the effects of GMOs on wild type organisms. The lack of quantitative data on devices of this kind has become the basis of our project this year. We are testing three types of kill switch: a chemical kill switch using the fluorescent proteins Killer Orange and Killer Red which damages and destroys the cell with reactive oxygen species; an enzymatic (lysozyme) kill switch that lyses the cell on production; a DNase kill switch that targets DNA disruption. Through individual tests and a continuous culture we are testing both the efficiency and the stability of each kill switch, looking at the potential difference of plasmid or genome integration, hoping to provide effective characterisation and insight into their suitability as effective biocontainment methods.
As a team, we the Exeter iGEM Team firmly believe in the importance of equality and diversity both in and out of the work place. In order to emphasise this we have dedicated the human practices section of the project to drawing attention to these two key issues within the scientific community. On the wiki you will find the interviews, surveys and social experiments that we have carried out throughout the 10 weeks of our project.