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Team:UC Davis
From 2009.igem.org
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.
