Frequency Annually Most recent 2016 | Inaugurated 2006 | |
Location(s) Valencia, Valencian Community, Spain | ||
The Valencia Team that participates in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition (a worldwide synthetic biology contest) was firstly created in 2008 and integrated by undergraduate university students from the University of Valencia and the Polytechnic University of Valencia
Contents
iGEM competition details
Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own colleges and universities over the summer, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. The members of the team are principally biology, biotechnology and biochemistry students plus engineers of different fields.
Projects
For the past 10 years Valencia has presented different projects to the competition. First projects were made together by students of both universities in Valencia. Since 2012 Valencia began to be represented by two teams: Biocampus (University of Valencia) and other teams formed by UPV (Polytechnic University of Valencia) and UCV (Valencia Catholic University Saint Vincent Martyr). Those Valencia’s projects are:
2006
“The E.coliTaster” consists on designing a cellular biosensor. The sensor device contains a receptor protein and a synthetic two-component signal transduction pathway, both implemented through new parts in the Registry. The receptor protein has been designed computationally using a ribose binding protein as a scaffold and finding the necessary mutations to change its ligand affinity towards a vanillin molecule making E. Coli tasting flavors.ng flavors.
2007
“The E.coliRuler” was created with the objective of clearing the noise of a system, and for that they designed a circuit where two inputs entered the system, a genetic circuit compared both signals and amplified the higher signal.
2008
“The Hot Yeast” project was created with the idea of being able to regulate the temperature in a controlled environment using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as the base of the experiment. The objective of the project was to demonstrate the multiple applications of the temperature control in different ways such as the industrial environment.
2009
“iGEM's Lightning Cell Display” (ILCD) project objective was to prove that the cells behaviour was controlled because of electrical pulses by creating a bio-screen of cells that emitted light as a response for electrical signals. Thanks to the calcium ion they pretended to create a screen able to refresh even faster than chemical made ones.
2010
“Mad Yeasts On Mars” was the name of the 2010 project. The objective of this project was to create tools that could be applied in a terraforming process from synthetic biology. An artificial Mars environment and the survival of yeast cells were put to test to determine if a change in the extreme Mars environment temperature could be replaced with a temperature considered on earth more habitable.
2011
“Water Colicin Cleaner” was the project exposed in 2011 in the iGEM competition by the Valencia team. Its objective was to purify residual water that wouldn’t be used anymore via E.coli and more specifically using a bacteriocin that this cells produce to filter the water, and later using cyanobacteria they regulated the water pH.
2012 (UPV and UCV)
“Synechosunshine” was created with a clear main objective, to develop and build a self-sufficient biolamp that was powered by solar light. In order to reach that objective the Valencia Team used two coexisting microorganisms, Synechococcus elongatus to make the biolamp able to be fed by solar light and Aliivibrio fischeri to produce the luminiscence.
2012 (Biocampus)
“Talking Life” goal was to destroy the communication barriers between the microorganisms used in laboratorys and the people that’s using them in order to know better the requirements of the microorganisms. In order to communicate between both they used an artificial language based on light wavelengths and a voice-recogniser software that allowed them to speak directly to the organisms.
2013 (UPV and UCV)
“Freshellent Yeast” proposed the production of aromas and repellents from yeast at the same time, the goal of this project was to be able to create in a future repellents that are more eco-friendly, that doesn’t represent a danger for the environment, and to be able to create a barrier against insects in common homes without risky chemicals.
2013 (Biocampus)
“Talking Life” goal was to destroy the communication barriers between the microorganisms used in laboratories and the people that’s using them in order to know better the requirements of the microorganisms. In order to communicate between both they used an artificial language based on light wavelengths and a voice-recogniser software that allowed them to speak directly to the organisms.
2014 (UPV)
“The Sexy Plant” is a project that tried to modificate some crops genetically in order to make them resist pests, and more specifically moth larvaes that destroy the plants. For reaching their goal they made crops to create sexual pheromones, this way males would be disoriented and since they wouldn’t find a female the larvae would never come to damage the plant.
2014 (Biocampus)
“The St200L” project (Standarization, Orthogonality and Open License) tried to answer if life is fully engineerable, how is it possible to improve this capacity if it is not completely engineerable and for that purpose they made several experiments on ten selected Biobrick parts. That lead them to a conclusion that was that principles in synthetic biology should never be taken as true since they collected lots of data to confirm so.
2015
"AladDNA" is a new revolutionary system able to process genetic information and give a response based on the user’s needs just like a genie in a lamp. This system uses DNA to store information inside a plant seed, acting as a miniaturized and flexible biofactory capable of producing a myriad of bioproducts such as interferon alpha or anti-choleric vaccines. Equipped with a multiplexed-optogenetically controlled circuit, AladDNA can activate the production of different high-added value products upon the reception of external signals based on combinations of light stimuli. AladDNA allows bioproduction in any condition avoiding prohibitive costs due to infrastructures.
2016
"HYPE-IT" (Hack Your Plants Editing with Innovative Technologies) aim is to decrease current technological barriers for breeding local crops using precision genome engineering, easing the gene editing process using SynBio-inspired simplified CRISPR/Cas9 tools. HYPE-IT brings along a software tool that associates crop traits with specific gene targets and designs optimal gRNAs for those targets. HYPE-IT also incorporates a modular gene circuit that serves as an in vivo gRNA testing system, ensuring appropriate gRNA choice even when no precise sequence information of local varieties is available. We aim to develop a split-Cas9 system based on viral vectors to efficiently deliver the editing machinery into the plant, and to create an affordable Labcase with the necessary laboratory equipment for HYPE-IT.