Proposed Implementation
Proposed Implementation:
Combining our hydroxylase gene, vitamin D-FRET binding proteins in
E. coli will yield a construct that will display differing fluorescent
signals in response to different levels of vitamin D. This would be
contained in a chamber, where it would be used for analysis.
Our proposed end users are patients and clinicians in northern British
Columbia hospitals. We anticipate that we can combine our method for
detecting vitamin D deficiency with methods of extracting blood from
vitamin D available in hospitals, allowing for cost-effective vitamin
D detection. Once a blood sample is processed by other methods to
extract vitamin D, our biosensor would be able to detect whether the
vitamin D level would qualify as deficient or not. Thus, we envision
that our project will be used by both clinicians and patients.
Including a gene for chloramphenicol resistance in our plasmid also
allows us to grow E. coli in our biosensor without having to worry
about being out-competed by other species.
Currently, in northern British Columbia, Canada, vitamin D testing is
rarely prescribed, as samples must be shipped almost 800 km south,
where testing is done. This results in a costly and time-consuming
process that is almost never utilized. Implementation of this product
would provide the option to utilize this process locally, which will
benefit the community as vitamin D deficiency is a prevalent issue in
northern communities.
One of the safety factors to consider is the ethical considerations
and requirements for obtaining blood samples to work with. However, by
working in collaboration with healthcare facilities, we can circumvent
this issue, as our project will not directly be involved in obtaining
blood samples.
