At A Glance

This year, we have disseminated two global health problems: heart attacks and strokes, and their viable clinical solutions. Due to the intricate components of the present mechanisms and treatments of such clinical methods we have set forth a project which has an ample perspective and approach, together with our policy & practice activities.

Here, you can take a look at the main components of our project design.

• Ischemia is the restriction of blood supply to tissues, generally caused by the blockage of a clot due to the reduction or inhibition of blood flow. This process results in the shortage of oxygen and nutrition vital for metabolism and survival of cells. Since oxygen is delivered to tissues only via the blood stream, incommensurate blood supply causes tissue cells to spurn. Particularly for the heart and brain, irreversible damage is parlously supposable to occur in as little as 3–4 minutes at body temperature.
• Ischemia is said to be the major factor in many of the medical problems of today. The famous heart attack, which is culpable for most of the deaths worldwide, is, as a matter of fact, an ischemic condition. In addition to this, the loss of a specific region of the brain due to inadequate blood perfusion is associated with ischemia and is widely known as stroke.In fact, every year, about 1.5 million Americans have heart attacks resulting in 500,000 deaths. A heart attack occurs every 20 seconds, which is equivalent to loss of a life approximately every single minute.

• As it can be expected, one treatment of ischemia is the extermination of the blockage. Nonetheless, such a removal has the likeliness of making the situation more radical. In the current day, it is possible to dissolve the elements of the clot with specific medication such as tissue adaption. However, the tissue adapted to hypoxic media may be poisoned from oxygen. The absence of oxygen and nutrients from the blood during the ischemic period creates a state in which the rejuvenation of circulation to its original state results in inflammation and oxidative damage due to the induction of oxidative stress instead of the restoration of normal function.
• The state of oxidative damage may cause some unwilling reactions which have the aptitude to produce toxic chemicals called reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are intermediate products of oxygenation which have an absence of one electron in their covalent bonds. This makes them ultimately unstable. With such instability, ROS can disrupt almost all cellular structures, including DNA, cell membranes and organelles. Due to such elements in the nature of ischemic conditions, the final solution should incorporate a solution for all negative outcomes caused by ischemia

• Our project design aims to assess and resolve two distinct cases. If a more holistic approach is to be taken towards ischemia, the issue could be better combatted. For this reason, we intend to use our vessel cells as a route to act in time to prevent the consequences of ischemia and heal them. To do this, we have to sense hypoxic conditions to prevent or remove clot formation and oxidative stress factors.
• Regarding the need of an efficient, cost effective and rapid treatment option, we have divided our approach into modules: Detection devices and activist proteins. We want to detect hypoxia in two levels; a promoter device in gene level and a protein domain allowing protein level regulation. We also aim to sense the oxidant factors in media to empower sensor devices. Afterwards, these devices will produce our activist proteins which are clot dissolving agents, antioxidant enzymes and proteins. We are hoping to propose a novel approach which reacts in early periods, intervene powerfully and prevent recurrence of such an attack effectively.

• Gene therapy and tissue engineering are two different, but promising fields which relate to our project. We have discussed the advantages and possible side effects, ethical or social issues of these fields to determine which of these would benefit best.
• Additionally, we have designed an applicative version of our project design, its possible clinical use from a clinician’s perspective and a patient’s view.
• Last but not least, we aim to feature a computer modelling data to predict the potential effects of our treatment and whether it can be used as preventive medication. We envision that our system will detect hypoxia before reaching the mortal levels and interfere to prevent the occurence of more serious conditions without raising awareness to the patient who receives this treatment.

• We successfully propose a promising, novel approach and system design to treat ischemia, a common and lethal public health issue.
• We have created a system which aims to treat ischemia: the number one cause of deaths worldwide.
• We successfully worked all of our seven parts in our engineered eukaryotic cells.
• We have accomplished modeling our gene expression dynamics and have also come up with the unique idea of modelling our safety experiment which enables us to prove graphically that we are able to switch our system off in the presence of a simple antibiotic such as tetracycline.
• We collaborated with the METU iGEM team and exchanged thoughts on how we can improve our modelling.
• We will hold a special metaphor event called ‘Think By Heart’ during the Giant Jamboree where we discover the unknowns of our heart simply beginning from its etymology to the cardiac cycle and how it is bizarrely similar to us human beings in terms of its style of functioning and many more.Have created a system which aims to treat ischemia: the number one cause of deaths worldwide.

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• Apart from our project design, we also want to intensify our approach on ischemic conditions and diseases by working on human practice and social issues. This year, we preferred to conduct an inclusive perspective and activity to address every aspect as well as all the stakeholders who have are connected with this issue. Therefore, we separated our P&P design into four columns; all of them show a respective process and interactive strategy.
• First, we need to analyze how big the problem is and how common these ischemic diseases are among people, especially in the iGEM community. The name of this module is “Identification”; with the intention of “identifying” the parameters of the problem, in order to solve the source of the matter efficiently.
• Afterwards, our aim is to undergo some tasks to raise awareness and warn people who are at high risk in terms of ischemic diseases such as heart attacks. We plan to present our “identification” data obtained from public in an influential way like the daily calorie intake from casual meals we have during normal a day. This comprises our second column, “clarification”.
• Thirdly, we need to be accurate and significant in whether we want to help all the stakeholders and public health. To do this, we chose the “specialization” step to get in contact with experts, doctors, specialists and related stakeholders of sectors and describe what has been done so far and what could be carried out.
• Lastly, we have to convey all of these experiments, data and advice into a product. However, we must clear out the possible consequences, side effects of this product or public reaction to it. Therefore we have researched and performed a brain-storming session to describe how it will be posed in the future, and this is named as the “application” step.

• In terms of collaboration, we invited Paris Bettencourt iGEM team to the International Turgut Ozal Medical Congress of our university which has the highest number of attendees across the nation. During the congress,we organized a workshop on synthetic biology together and delved into the unlimited possibilies of projects in this field.
• Secondly, we invited METU Turkey iGEM team to our university for dinner. We presented our projects respectively and discussed some ideas regarding our projects. We also debated on how we can help each other and what we can do for collaboration purposes or P&P. METU Turkey iGEM team requested to use some of the parts present in our iGEM kit plates for their project which we accepted.