From 2014.igem.org

TOUR

Attributions

First of all, we would like to thank Prof. Thorsten Mascher for offering us his support and the oppurtunity to participate at the iGEM competition. We also thank our supervisors Jara, Julia, Fabian and Simon for their great help and inspiring ideas. Without you all the efforts of the last year would not have been possible!

We thank the whole Mascher lab for sharing their labspace with us, helping us around when having a question and the great atmosphere.

We thank PD Dr. [http://www.bio.uni-kl.de/mitarbeiter/bio-a-c/bio-brueckner-reinh/ Reinhold Brückner] (TU Kaiserslautern) for providing us with the apathogenic S. pneumoniae strain R6, R6 genomic DNA and the corresponding CSP.

We thank the [http://www.bioimaging.bio.lmu.de/research/research-group-leonhardt/index.html AG Leonhardt] from the LMU for using their Tecan plate reader.

We thank Dr. Andreas Brachman and the [http://www.genetik.biologie.uni-muenchen.de/service/genomicsserviceunit/index.html Genomics Service Unit] for providing us their superfast and precise sequencing service.

We thank PD Dr. Susanne Gebhard (University of Bath) for kindly providing S. aureus gDNA.

We thank Dr. Michael Otto (Laboratory of Human Bacterial Pathogenesis NIAID, NIH) for providing us with synthetic AIPs.

We thank Dr. Haike Antelmann (Universität Greifswald) for sending aus the protease-deficient WB700 strain.

We thank Christian Pieger and Dr. Michael Germ for their help with the iGEM@school project.

We thank all our experts that accompanied us on our journey of theoretically taking a medical product from the lab to the society! Your input really helped us to adjust our project!

We especially like to thank the [http://www.rathenau.nl/en.html Rathenau Institute] for their collaboration and [http://www.rathenau.nl/en/employees/employee/virgil-rerimassie.html Virgil Rerimassie] for being our advisor for this collaboration!

Last but not least we want to thank our sponsors for the financial support, especially Lehre@LMU!

Hi there!

Welcome to our Wiki! I'm BaKillus, the pathogen-hunting microbe, and I'll guide you on this tour through our project. If you want to learn more about a specific step, you can simply close the tour and come back to it anytime you like. So let's start!

What's the problem?

First of all, what am I doing here? The problem is, pathogenic bacteria all around the world are becoming more and more resistant against antimicrobial drugs. One major reason for the trend is the inappropriate use of drugs. With my BaKillus super powers, I want to reduce this misuse and thus do my part to save global health.

Sensing of pathogens

To combat the pathogenic bacteria, I simply eavesdrop on their communication. Bacteria talk with each other via quorum sensing systems, which I use to detect them and trigger my responses.

Adhesion

The more specific and effective I can use my powers, the lower the danger is of provoking new resistance development. So I catch pathogens whenever I get hold of them and stick to them until my work is done.

Killing

Talking about my work - killing pathogens is finally what I am made for. In response to quorum sensing molecules of the pathogens, I export a range of antimicrobial substances leading to dissipation of biofilms and the killing of the targeted bacteria.

Suicide switch

When the job is done and all the bad guys are finished, you don't need a super hero anymore. So after fulfilling my work I say goodbye to the world by activating my suicide switch.

Application

Of course I'm not only a fictional hero, but a very real one. In two different prototypes, I could be used for diagnosis or treatment of pathogen-caused diseases. However, there is still a whole lot of regulational and economical questions that have to be answered before.

See you!

So now you know my short story - and it is time for me to return to my fight for a safer world. Feel free to take a closer look on my super powers, the process of my development or the plans for a medical application.

Team:LMU-Munich/Team/Attributions