Team:NEU CHINA/Attributions

Attributions

This year, we successfully developed an environmental multi-virus detection device based on engineered E. coli to capture coronavirus, such as SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV and HCoV-229E, to spark fluorescence reporter gene. The PmrCAB system derived from Salmonella was recombined onto the surface of E. coli , and the Fe(III) recognition site of PmrB was replaced with the receptor of targeted coronavirus. Therefore, the bacteria can capture coronavirus via binding to their receptors and transport signaling to the downstream components. LuxI/LuxR quorum sensing system from E. coli and Hrp. amplifier from Pseudomonas syringae were used to enhance the sensitivity of output signal. In addition, we also develop an improved air sampler to enrich nanoparticle in air onto engineered E. coli . The implementation of the environmental multivirus detection would be helpful for establish a preventive system in public place, such as hospital and supermarket.

Team members

Zihan Wu

Manage the overall task of the team; Responsible for experimental group work; Design the entire project; Provided material for promotion video; Participates in wiki material writing and wiki design; Responsible for financial affairs.

Jiaming Tian

Responsible for S protein experimental work; Responsible for hardware design; Provided materials for wiki; Participated in presentation video recording.

Ruinan Wang

Responsible for experimental work; Participated in promotion video recording; Participates in some human practices work; Provided material for wiki.

Yi Wu

Responsible for wiki material writing and wiki design; Participates in some human practices work; Participated in some experiments; Provided material for promotion video and participate in recording; Participated in presentation video recording.

Qin Wang

Responsible for human practices group work; Participated in wiki material writing; Participated in some experiments; Provided material for promotion video; Responsible for presentation video design and recording.

Jiahui Xiao

Responsible for experimental group work; Participated in wiki material writing; Organized online communication with experts; Drew pictures for wiki.

Kexun Yuan

Responsible for wiki design; Drew pictures for poster and wiki; Participated in promotion video design; Responsible for presentation video design and recording.

Mingxue Ma

Responsible for human practices group work; Communicated with other iGEM teams; Participated in some experiments.

Yiquan Song

Responsible for model group work; Participated in some experiments; Provided material for Wechat eduction; Participated in presentation video recording.

Xiangjian Jiang

Responsible for model group work; Participated in some experiments; Responsible for project related literature review; Participates in some human practices work.

Xiaoya Liu

Participated in wiki material writing; Participated in promotion video recording; Drew pictures for wiki; Participated in presentation video recording; Participates in some human practices work.

Zihan Tang

Participated in wiki material writing; Drew pictures for wiki; Provided material for Wechat eduction; Participated in presentation video recording.

Yingqi Luo

Participated in wiki material writing; Participated in promotion video recording; Participated in presentation video recording; Participates in some human practices work; Drew pictures for wiki.

Jinwen Zhao

Responsible for hardware design; Participated in presentation video recording; Provided materials for wiki.

Zequn Liu

Participated in some experiments; Responsible for project related literature review.

Liang Bai

Provided material for bilibili eduction; Participated in promotion video recording; Drew pictures for wiki.

Chang Ou

Responsible for wiki coding.

Ziyao Fan

Participated in hardware design.

Ziyan Zhou

Participated in S protein experiments.

Yiran Zhao

Participated in wiki material writing.

Bei Liu

Responsible for Wechat education; Participates in some human practices work.

Shuwei Wang

Participated in wiki material writing; Provided material for Wechat eduction.

Enlightenment

Over the years, humans have suffered from coronavirus several times, and today we are still troubled by SARS-CoV-2. It’s unknown whether we will be affected by the coronavirus in the future. Detection of environmental coronavirus would be a critical step for cutting off the source and route of its infection. Therefore, our team started brainstorming in March, 2021, and after discussion, we finally decided on the subject of environmental multivirus detection system in April, 2021, and started the experiment in May.

Synthetic biology class

There is no synthetic biology course in our school, so we learn about this field through other channels, such as lectures, videos, literature, etc. Besides, we share our knowledge of synthetic biology with interested students on Wechat and bilibili platform.

General support

Prof. Yongye Huang helped us during our brainstorming and let us use his lab for some experiments.

Project support and advice

Prof. Yongye Huang suggested that we could try to develop an environmental multivirus detection system. He helped communicate with professor at mechanical school who was working on air purifiers to provide inspiration and suggestions for our hardware design. He provided us with a laboratory for our experiment.

Fundraising help and advice

College of Life and Health Science and Innovation Center of Northeastern University provided us with financial support.

Lab support

Prof. Yongye Huang let us use his labs for our experiments, and provide us day-to-day support in the lab, all the PhD students and masters helped us a lot. We are very grateful to you!

Difficult technique support

Snapgene provides us with free Snapgene software, which is of great help to our DNA sequence design. Mathworks provides us with free MatLab software, which is a good tool for us to do Dry Lab work. We used to model our project and tried to use it to analyze our project data.

Project advisor support

Tianye Li, Zhenzhen Hao, Yanjian Li, Guoxun Li, Wei Du, Xindi Gao, Yiyan Yu, Tao Wang, Peixuan Zheng, Chenghao Suo, Huili Li ,Guozhuang Zhang

Wiki support

We construct our entire Wiki on our own. Graduate students Yiming Liang and Tieying Liu gave us some opinions on the page design.

Presentation coaching

Prof. Yongye Huang, Prof. Yang Yu, Prof. Rui Jiang and Prof. Xiaoyu Wang provided guidance and recommendations for our presentation. Jingning Sheng, Haonan Xu, Yingheng Liu, Xiuru Zhou, and Tao Yin provided presentation recording.

Human Practices support

Zhongzi Huayu Environmental Sampling Company helped us learn the principle of air sampler, and lent the environmental sampler to us for reference, which provided help for our hardware design.

Center for Disease Control (CDC) of Shenyang allowed us to visit their laboratory, and helped us understand current virus testing methods. The experts there make comments on our project design.

Tieling Xinyi Food Company allowed us to visit their production line and telling us about their struggle to ensure food safety, which made us aware of the importance of multivirus detection in the environment.

Shenyang Linsheng Ecological Farm allowed us allowed us to visit their pig farms and introduced us to the primitive and inefficient virus detection methods used in pig farms.

Shangyuan No.1 Primary School, Shenyang No.50 Middle School, and Shenyang No.20 High School have provided us an opportunity to introduce synthetic biology and knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 to primary and secondary students.

Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank our PIs, Instructors, and Advisors for all the guidance and support that we received throughout the process.

Thanks to Huang Lab for providing us with their labs to do experiments.

Thanks to Prof. Xuguang Du and Prof. Peng Qu for accepting our interview, and give us suggestions on the improvement of our project

Thanks to iGEM team BS_United_China for your help and suggestions on quorum sensing system.

Thanks to Jilin_CHINA, Jiangnan_CHINA, LZU_CHINA for holding the CCiC China Online Meetup.

Thanks to BNU-China for helping us connect Hrp.

Thanks to DUT-China for your help and suggestions on model.

Specially thank you, PhD student Tianye Li, PhD student Zhenzhen Hao, PhD student Yanjian Li, PhD student Tao Wang, PhD student Guoxun Li, PhD student Xindi Gao, PhD student Wei Du, PhD student Yiyan Yu, BD student Peixuan Zheng, for giving us some advice for experiments and wiki material writing.

Thank all the people who came to our progress presentations and gave useful feedback and input.

Finally, a huge and special thank you to everyone that supported our fundraising campaign and helped us in any way. A special thanks to Prof. Yongye Huang, our PIs that helped and guided us a lot throughout this journey. We are forever grateful!