Team:Paris Bettencourt
From 2014.igem.org
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Revision as of 09:18, 14 August 2014
It has always been the objective of iGEM Paris Bettencourt to conduct novel projects. This year, our team has decided to explore a topic that has rarely been approached by synthetic biologists in this competition: odor.
Human olfaction relies on a tremendous number of cellular receptors that can detect specific molecules in the air. Upon the detection of combination of these compounds, a message is sent to the brain, which leads to the perception of one unique odor. There is considerable work left to do in order to understand the sense of smell, especially in determining how olfactory receptors operate. Few synthetic biologists have tried to engineer bacteria to produce smell or to treat bad smell since the production of odor by microorganisms is not studied often. One reason for the lack of study in this area is that it is hard to quantify and characterize an odor. We will overcome this by using odor professionals and commonly used scientific tools. We want to do this in order to investigate the links between our skin microbiota and body odor, as well as the perception of one's body odor by others.
News
First MOOC video
12/08/2014
Newsletter n°1
from July 28th to August 10th 2014
We co-founded a biweekly newsletter with the iGEM team from Xiamen University in China. Currently, there are 8 teams, from 7 different countries involved. The newsletter has two major parts: project update and team member introduction. We hope through this activity the teams will be able to keep better record of their own projects, be able to get feedback from their peers and get to know other young synthetic biologists. There will also be special issue on interviews with iGEM alumni, as well as past advisors, from college teams in Germany and Brazil.