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Team:UI-Indonesia/Human Practice/Expert Talking
From 2014.igem.org
Professor Masafumi Yohda
Biotechnology and Life Science
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan
YOHDA sensei is a biotechnology and life science professor, and he’s also a lecturer in Engineering in Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT). He came to Indonesia as a guest lecture in Society of Biological Engineering Universitas Indonesia Student Chapter (SBE-UISC) featuring UI Synbio Club Seminar entitled “Application of Biotechnology in Industry.” He has come to several Nobel Prize Meetings and very famous, yet he still gave us many advices on our Lab Work. Luckily, he’s here with us to provide some information regarding synthetic biology application projection in Asia, also problems involving application of Synbio in Japan. Check it out!
Synthetic biology really has big prospects in the world. We need ideas––yet we need breakthroughs if we want to achieve more from it. Asia is being forward in many aspects over the past several years. However, Major findings from the Wilson Center on “Tracking the Growth of Synthetic Biology” in 2013 shows that the number of entities conducting research and commercial applications in Synthetic Biology in Europe and US is very high, but Asia has been left behind. Japan––as the most developed country in Asia––is known of its high technology development. Depart from this statement; Professor Yohda from TUAT (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology) stated that there are restrictions in Japan towards GMO application. This condition biased the usual fact and in real life, a part of Japanese people are intolerant of science implementation, so the government of Japan protect all of the people including the conventionalist by restricting synthetic biology and especially GMO. Safety module might works, but back to reality. Every machine that works can’t be 100% effective, and so is safety module. There’s always a chance of failure of microorganism to escape and contaminate environment, especially because the size of microorganism and bacteria is very small. Although there are chances of failure, Prof. Yohda as a scientist wants a higher degree of Synbio development in Japan. He’s excited about synthetic biology development because it will cope problems many industries. People need to take more risks and accept this novel development. [Read more…]
About Our Project
Biofilm is a matrix extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) that is surrounding microbial collonies. It causes more than 65% of all microbial infections. Most of pathogenic bacteria could make biofilm that can cause antibiotic resistance issue and increase its pathogenecity. Our Escherichia coli can degrade biofilm from various bacteria after it seeks them by detecting their quorum sensing molecule. Our team will focus in Vibrio cholerae because it is a cause of cholera as a deadly tropical countries disease. We present our E. coli agent that can degrade biofilm of V. cholerae after it can detect quorum sensing molecule from V. cholerae, CAI-1, by CqsS receptor. Then our E. coli agent will activate motility gene, CheZ, to hunt V. cholerae. When it arrives, our bacteria will degrade the biofilm by secreting enzymes, such as α-amylase, nuclease, and substilisin to break down the matrix and peptide 1018 that will kill V. cholerae.
Our project can be applied in broad spectrum bacteria. Not only Vibrio cholerae but also other bacteria such as: Pseudomonas aerugoinosa, Bacillus substillis, Klebsiella pneumonia, Staphylococcus aureus, and E. coli Top 10.
