Team:Calgary

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B.s. Detector

We are developing a novel, genome-based, point-of-care synthetic biological device to simultaneously diagnose multiple infectious diseases that are prevalent worldwide.

Misdiagnosis of Infectious Diseases

Infectious diseases such as typhoid fever, meningitis, pneumonia and visceral leishmaniasis have similar clinical manifestations as malaria, thus are often misdiagnosed in resource-poor developing countries lacking suitable medical diagnostic facilities. Failure to properly identify such diseases prevents medical professionals from administering appropriate treatments in a timely manner, which results in economic costs and human suffering. In order to address this issue, the iGEM 2014 team is developing a novel, genome-based, rapid point-of-care synthetic biological device to simultaneously diagnose multiple infectious diseases.

Case Study

Prevalent infectious diseases such as meningitis, dengue and typhoid fever are symptomatically similar to malaria, and are thus often misdiagnosed in developing countries which LACK THE RESOURCES to maintain suitable healthcare infrastructures.

Misdiagnosis prevents the appropriate treatments from being administered in a timely manner, which results in unnecessary HUMAN SUFFERING and a significant financial burden on the healthcare system.

Our Device, Our Idea

We are engineering Bacillus subtilis to generate chromophoric reporter proteins in response to pathogenic genetic markers.

Components of Our System