Team:Penn

What is your project about?

Here you can explain your project in a short sentence or paragraph!

For example: Our team designed a biosensor to detect a certain chemical in water

How does your project work?

Here you can explain briefly how your project works. And add a link to your project page.

Who will your project help?

Tell your audience how your project will help the environment, science, medicine or everything else.

Why did we choose this project?

The largest obstacle the medical field and the drug industry face today are the lack of testing options for new drugs and the latest treatments. Of the many animal models and other experimental methods that exist, none simulate the complexity of the microenvironments found in the human body like the gut or the mouth. This makes the testing and distribution of the most novel and potentially life saving treatments difficult and time consuming. At the same time, these testing methods may not provide the most accurate results of how treatments will affect the human body.

How will our project help?

The goal of our project is to use our genetic circuit that uses quorum sensing to control the populations of two different strains of bacteria in a coculture. By exploiting quorum sensing in a similar way bacteria found in the gut, mouth, and on skin do, we hope to create a microbiome that can someday be used to simulate those of the body. This microbiome will be the first step in using synthetic biology to create more accessible, safer, and more accurate drug testing platforms.