Innovation Anthology #343:
Putting together bits of biological material to build new organisms is not an easy task, and the proteins don’t always function the way scientists hope they would.
So a team of students at the University of Calgary decided to take that on as their project for the upcoming International Genetically Engineered Machines or iGEM competition.
According to team member Emily Hicks, the students have developed a “protein expression tool kit”. It will help identify at which point in the process things are going wrong.
EMILY HICKS: Once we get everything perfected we think that our kit will allow people to be able take a certain protein that they are not being able to express, put it into our system and maybe see what the problem is. We expect that a lot of the problems are going to arise because of the misfolding, specifically in the peri plasm and the cytoplasm. So they will be able to put their gene in and perhaps use our inducement promoter to look at what level of expression of this gene is going to cause misfolding, and does this gene misfold, which will allow them to know what the issue is and maybe how to better target that.
Student Emily Hicks says this tool kit is a first, and it will have many applications for synthetic biology beyond the iGEM competition.
Thanks today to Alberta Innovates Technology Futures
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Alberta Innovates Technology Futures
Alberta Innovates launched its consolidation on November 1, 2016
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Program Date: 2010-09-30