Country Profile

Argentina

SYNBIO MAP

Synbio Map identifies the location of companies, universities, research laboratories and developing projects using synthetic biology institutions. It is a good platform for comparison of the development of synthetic biology worldwide. Unfortunately, Argentina has no registration.

PARTICIPATION IN THE iGEM COMPETITION

Argentina is represented as from 2012 by the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) Unfortunately , Buenos Aires University did not registry this year We, iGEMers from University of Amazonas, send the best of luck for youand say that you guys have been a huge inspiration to us.We hope to meet you again next year , the largest university in Argentina and the largest university entered in iGEM - Latin America. The UBA university was founded on August 12, 1821 in Buenos Aires, consisting of thirteen schools, six hospitals ten museums and is linked to four high schools.

2012 - Project Title: Synthetic ecology

Abstract: We aimed to create a stable community of microorganisms that could be used as a standard tool. Our system would allow the co-culture of several genetically engineered machines in tunable proportions. Hence the engineered organism would be a standard part! This defines a new level of modularity allowing the increase of the complexity of the system by moving to the community level. We´ve come up with several plausible circuits designs and in silico predictions and decided to build a “crossfeeding” system in which each strain produces and secretes an aminoacid the other strains need to grow. We characterized two auxotrophic yeast strains (for tryptophan and histidine) and designed novel biobricks that regulate the export of Trp and His rich peptides. In the future this would allow for other modules to control the proportions of each strain, thus allowing dynamic and stimulus dependent changes in the abundances of each strain.

2013Project title: To drink or not to drink

Abstract: Our project is focused on developing a biosensor specific for certain water pollutants, with a modular and scalable approach. This approach would make it easy to adapt the response for the detection of different substances. In contrast to other iGEM biosensors, it does not rely on expensive equipment or qualified people to interpret the results. Being aware that most of the populations affected by consumption of contaminated groundwater don’t have scientific or technical training, we intend the device to be cheap and easily distributed. We have designed it in a way that any user could easily determine the presence and level of the contaminant on drinking water, using image-based instructions. The project will focus on measuring a primary pollutant: arsenic. However, its modular and scalable design provides an easy way to measure various contaminants such as nitrate/nitrite among others.