Our project in a nutshell

The 2014 EPFL iGEM team has been working on showing that biologically engineered organisms can detect and process signals quickly and efficiently. With this in mind, our team brought forward a novel idea: combining protein complementation techniques with biosensors to achieve fast spatiotemporal analysis of cell responses to stimuli. To restate this in an easier way, by fusing complementary fragments of a reporter protein to proteins interacting upon stimulus, we are able to detect signal dynamics thanks to the association of the reporter fragments. We thereby rely on much faster post-transcriptional modifications to generate signals rather than traditional reporter transcription.

As a proof-of-concept, we aimed to develop the first BioPad: a biological trackpad made of a microfluidic chip, touch-responsive organisms and a signal detector. To make our organisms touch-sensitive, we engineering two stress-related pathways in E. coli and S. cerevisiae. In E. coli, we engineered the Cpx Pathway - a two-component regulatory system responsive to envelope stress. In S. cerevisiae, we modified the HOG Pathway - a MAPKK pathway responsive to osmotic stress. To learn more about the various components of our project, check out our overview section. If you are a judge, you might also be interested in our result page, our data page and our judging form.