WELCOME TO iGEM 2014!

Your team has been approved and you are ready to start the iGEM season!
On this page you can document your project, introduce your team members, document your progress
and share your iGEM experience with the rest of the world!

Click here to edit this page!

Project Description

The threat of antibiotic resistance has been a concern since the discovery of penicillin. As antibiotics continue to be used to treat disease, pathogenic bacteria continue to develop resistance, eventually becoming irresponsive to multiple classes of antibiotics. This is a major problem for areas that must maintain sterile environments, such as hospitals or other health-care settings. Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) are already an existing issue that poses risks to people receiving or recovering from treatment. Gram-negative bacteria in particular are known to cause more HAIs as they are more resistant to antibiotics than gram-positive bacteria. Irresponsible use of antibiotics has only exacerbated this issue. Recent reports from the World Health Organization confirm that antibiotic resistance is no longer a future hazard, but is now a global health threat.

Alternatives to modern antibiotics, such as antimicrobial peptides, are now being researched. Antimicrobial peptides, or AMPs, are peptides produced innately by the immune systems of certain organisms to fight off infection. Because they kill microorganisms through different mechanisms, they have the potential to be effective against antibiotic resistant bacteria. One such AMP is melittin, produced by honey bees and used in their venom. Melittin kills cells by forming pores in the cell membrane, eventually destabilizing the cell and causing cell lysis. Because melittin targets a conserved area of cells, bacteria cannot develop resistance to it as easily as different types of antibiotics.

Our project this summer is to transform E. coli with the melittin gene in honey bees, so that the E. coli may express the melittin peptide, thereby developing a means to mass-produce melittin as an alternative to today's antibiotics. We hope to optimize the production of melittin in E. coli, as well as to test the bioactivity of our produced melittin in comparison to its naturally-occurring counterpart.

There are a few wiki requirements teams must follow:

• All pages, images and files must be hosted on the 2014.igem.org server.
• All pages must be created under the team’s name space.
• As part of your documentation, keep the links from the menu to the left.
• Do not use flash in wiki code.
• The iGEM logo should be placed on the upper part of every page and should link to 2014.igem.org.

Visit the Wiki How To page for a complete list of requirements, tips and other useful information.

Tips

We are currently working on providing teams with some easy to use design templates.
In the meantime you can also view other team wikis for inspiration! Here are some very good examples

• 2013 SDU Denmark
• 2013 SYSU China
• 2013 Shenxhen BGIG ATCG
• 2013 Colombia Unianades
• 2013 Lethbridge

For a full wiki list, you can visit iGEM 2013 web sites and iGEM 2012 web sites lists.

This wiki will be your team’s first interaction with the rest of the world, so here are a few tips to help you get started:

• State your accomplishments! Tell people what you have achieved from the start.
• Be clear about what you are doing and what you plan to do.
• You have a global audience! Consider the different backgrounds that your users come from.
• Make sure information is easy to find; nothing should be more than 3 clicks away.
• Avoid using very small fonts and low contrast colors; information should be easy to read.
• Start documenting your project as early as possible; don’t leave anything to the last minute before the Wiki Freeze. For a complete list of deadlines visit the iGEM 2013 calendar
• Have lots of fun!