27.08.2008
Heidelberg bacteria killer taking part in iGEM competition
Professor Roland Eils and his team (fourth from the left, front row). (Copyright: Universität Heidelberg)
The international Genetically Engineered Machines competition (iGEM) is a gathering of experts in the field of synthetic biology staged by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. The team from Heidelberg is planning a biological machine capable of identifying, targeting and killing germs and tumours. For their model, the students developed an artificial system consisting of two strains of E. coli intestinal bacteria: a “prey” strain representing the pathogen, and a “killer”. The two problems confronting the researchers: the killer bacteria must be able to recognize their prey and they must possess an efficient killing module.
Work on the ambitious project is already in full swing: fifteen
Universität Heidelberg students and one from Technische
Universität Darmstadt have been working on their bacteria killer day and night for the past three months. They are being supported by members of Victor Sourjik’s workgroup at the
Universität Heidelberg Centre for Molecular Biology (ZMBH) and Roland Eils’ Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics Department, also at Universität Heidelberg, and the
German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ). The work is being performed at Bioquant, the new centre for quantitative analysis of molecular and cellular biological systems.
The iGEM, which was first held in 2005, has since grown to one of the scientific community’s largest international contests. 84 student teams from all over the world will be taking part this year. The results will be presented and a number of prizes awarded at the finals in Boston in early November. The competition was founded to help fill university laboratories that frequently stand idle during the summer months and to give students independent project work experience at a very early stage of their university educations.
More:
http://www.uni-heidelberg.de http://www.zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de/ http://www.dkfz.de/de/index.html
http://www.bioquant.uni-heidelberg.de/ http://www.tu-darmstadt.de/index.de.jsp
http://2008.igem.org/Team:Heidelberg
