As a new team to the iGEM
competition, Southampton hopes to bring
an innovative application of quorum sensing to the 2009 Jamboree. Using
this method of bacterial communication, we have designed two systems,
which demonstrate the classic games
‘Rock-Paper-Scissors’
and ‘Conway’s Game of Life’.We aim for
these
complementary systems to exhibit complex intercellular behaviours
arising from the application of simple ‘game’
rules.
John
Conway’s Game of Life is a popular representation of cellular
automata. As a zero player game, it proceeds without further input once
initiated. We intend to utilize the Game’s basic rules to
develop
a system on two separate plasmids that fluoresces in an imitation of
the Game. Thereby we aim to initiate and thus control the creation of
patterns produced by the oscillating bacteria.
Rock-Paper-Scissors’
is a well-known two-person hand game
whereby
the players seek to produce a gesture that will defeat that of their
opponent. By coordinating the promoters and operators of three
different bacterial cells, we have designed a system where each
bacterium can disable the primary plasmid of specific opponent cells,
whilst simultaneously enduring the attacks of their rival cells. Our
aim is to have no bias within the system so that the end result is not
predetermined.
Learn more about the iGEM
competition here and about synthetic biology
here.
Updates
04/09/2009
13/09/2009
Team
From left :- Steph, Danie,
Tom, Jon, Jo, Paul, Karolina, Claire, Richmond.
To find out more about us, go
to the Team Page
or look us up on facebook.
We perfect a pattern:
Digest…ligate…transform
Digest…ligate…transform
Digest…ligate…transform
Shame none of them worked…
On the plus side, our simulations are looking pretty good!
Transfer over to new wiki layout in progress. Watch this space!