• Home
• Project
  • Project Aims
  • Project Introduction
  • Project Description
  • Project Projection
  • References and Links
  • Protocols
    • Protocol Overview
    • Protocol Theory
    • Biobrick Transformation
    • Colony PCR
    • DNA Double Digestion
    • Gel Electrophoresis
    • High Fidelity PCR
    • LB Plates
    • Ligation
    • Ligation Transformation
    • Plasmid Preparation
• Biobrick Parts
  • Game of Life
  • Rock Paper Scissors
• Team
  • Team Profiles
  • Advisor Profiles
  • Southampton Profile
  • University Profile
  • Gallery
• Advisor Profiles
• Human Practices
  • Overview
  • Outreach
  • iGEM Experience
  • Political Awareness
• Notebook
  • Notebook
  • Lab Book
  • Advisor Blog
• Acknowledgments
  • Sponsors
  • Team Southampton

Project Description

01/08/2009 - Project

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

21/09/2009

Team

From left :- Steph, Danie, Tom, Jon, Jo, Paul, Karolina, Claire, Richmond.

For more information on our project, Click Here.

To find out more about us, go to the Team Page or look us up on facebook.

So, onto the final week, and what do we have to show for our iGEM experience? We performed TA cloning on our novel biobricks; pTac and GFP. This is good news, as it is the first (and only) successful ligation so far…

We have a final meeting and farewell with a few refreshments… For more click