Team:ETH Zurich/project/goals

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First, we follow a biomimetic approach. This approach corresponds to the motto "What I cannot create, I cannot understand" (Richard Feynman). We are inspired by Sierpinski triangle patterns present on sea snail shells, and engineer the same kind of emergent patterns on grids of bacterial colonies. These patterns are emergent because they arise directly from one logic gate implemented in all bacteria. This project that combines modeling and wet-lab work will enable us to answer some questions such as how complexity can emerge from simple rules, whether it can be predicted from simple rules, how we can deal with crosstalk and leakiness of biological systems to enable a good predictability.
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First, we follow a biomimetic approach. We are inspired by Sierpinski triangle patterns present on sea snail shells. We engineer comparable emergent patterns on grids of bacterial colonies. Our approach corresponds to the motto "What I cannot create, I cannot understand" (Richard Feynman). This project that combines modeling and wet-lab work will enable us to answer some questions such as how complexity can emerge from simple rules, whether it can be predicted from simple rules and how we can deal with crosstalk and leakiness of biological systems to enable a good predictability.
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Second, we widen the scope of our investigation to other projects and disciplines, from scientific fields to philosophy, sociology or art. We address the issue of how to deal with complexity, by interviewing experts in several fields and conducting a larger scale study with a survey. Do these people consider that parts are strictly ordered, and try to reduce complexity to simple parts strictly following a set of deterministic rules, or do they accept that complexity comprises a mix of order and disorder, that a part of uncertainty cannot be neglected and that complex systems should be studied as a whole? Both approaches have their advantages and their drawbacks, which one should we choose to deal with the increasing complexity of our world?
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Second, we widen the scope of our investigation to other projects and disciplines, from scientific fields to philosophy, sociology or art. We address the issue of how to deal with complexity, by interviewing experts in several fields and conducting a larger study with a survey. Do these people consider that parts are strictly ordered, and try to reduce complexity to simple parts strictly following a set of deterministic rules, or do they accept that complexity comprises a mix of order and disorder, that a part of randomness cannot be neglected and that complex systems should be studied as a whole? Both approaches have their advantages and their drawbacks, which one should we choose to deal with the increasing complexity of our world?
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Here is a more detailed list of subgoals:
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These overarching considerations led us to formulate these specific subgoals:
* Make a Sierpinski triangle pattern appear on a grid of bacteria
* Make a Sierpinski triangle pattern appear on a grid of bacteria
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* Conjugate quorum sensing and logic gates in bacterial colonies
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* Associate quorum sensing and logic gates in bacterial colonies
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* Implement an XOR gate in an ''E. coli''
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* Implement an XOR gate in ''E. coli''
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* Characterize integrases (retrieve missing parameters)
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* Characterize integrases (retrieve missing parameters for our model)
* Lower the leakiness in quorum sensing systems
* Lower the leakiness in quorum sensing systems
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* Study quorum sensing crosstalk in order to implement orthogonal communication
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* Study different level of quorum sensing crosstalk in order to implement orthogonal communication
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* Be able to predict accurately the system’s behavior
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* Be able to predict accurately the system’s behavior by our model
* Conduct a survey about how to deal with complexity
* Conduct a survey about how to deal with complexity
* Gather interviews of experts from different fields
* Gather interviews of experts from different fields
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Latest revision as of 22:52, 17 October 2014

iGEM ETH Zurich 2014