Team:UC Davis

From 2009.igem.org

Revision as of 03:29, 1 August 2009

Project and team descriptions:

 
         1 in 133 Americans are suffering from a form of autoimmune disorder called Celiac Disease. Celiac Disease is an condition where the small intestines of an affected individual cannot digest gliadin, a protein present in gluten. If consumed, the body kick starts its immune system response. The effects of the immune response include, but are not limited to abdominal pain and vomiting.

       One of our teammate's friends is currently suffering from this illness, which prompted us to look into Celiac Disease as our main focus. What we learned that currently, no cure has been found and the only treatment is a gluton free diet. This treatment is very difficult as an overwhelming majority of food contain gluten and gliadin.

          This year the University of California: Davis entered the 2009 iGEM competition a focus on creating a new way to treat Celiac. Our project has been split into two tasks. The first is to produce an inducible secretion system; the second is to construct a biological pH sensor to compartmentalize this secretion system in the stomach. Also, this pH system will act as a kill switch if this system were to ever leave the stomach by inducing cell death via pH change. After weeks of reading numerous articles, we are confident that with the correct parts and timing, our two systems can be built in time to present to the iGEM community.

 
We have recently moved into the synthesis and assembly stage of our two systems.

 Though this is our first year in the competition, we feel that we are moving at a good pace, working out kinks along the way.

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