Bronze medal

Competition Deliverables

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Attributions

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Project Description

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Contribution

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Silver medal

Engineering Success

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Collaboration

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Human Practices

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Proposed Implementation

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Gold Medal

Special Prizes

Education

We believe we are eligible for the Best Education special prize as we have actively focused on finding and developing new, innovative ways to share synthetic biology with a more diverse community. We have given presentations online for high school and university students explaining what synthetic biology is, what iGEM is about, and what local issue our team is trying to tackle this year utilizing synthetic biology. We have also created a science kit and a children's booklet with the goal of demonstrating that it is feasible to teach synthetic biology at a child-friendly level far earlier than our present educational system permits. Furthermore, we have actively posted educational content on our Instagram account and collaborated with a Finnish science center, Heureka. Finally, throughout the summer months, we hosted an Aalto-Helsinki Podcast, which was created not only to raise awareness about synthetic biology but also about science in general.

Hardware

As a part of our project, we constructed our own prototype of the electronic compartment using Arduino Uno. We developed our own Arduino-based programme for measuring the intensity of our expected fluorescent signal, which can then send data wirelessly to a receiver. To mimic the biological signal, we tested our electronic system with a blue-green specific wavelength led that emits light which is close to the theoretical wavelength of the green fluorescence. We were able to send data from this measurement through radio transmittance with transceiver and receiver components. The LDR and LED were optimized for green fluorescent protein but could also be changed to accommodate use of other fluorescent proteins. In addition to the prototype, we conducted thorough research on different components of our electrical compartment to optimize the system for real-life applications.

Integrated Human Practices

From the very beginning our human practices continuously shaped the design and direction of our project. Throughout our project timeline, we met with many different experts in sleep, microbiota, gastroenterology, and many more. As we met with these advisors we gained valuable insight to our local community and how our project could be better developed to fit their needs. Most notably, after talking with a pediatric gastroenterologist and a professor of microbiome research we decided to shift our project from a diagnostic or therapeutic clinical product to a research tool for scientist to gain more valuable insight in the gut-brain axis. In addition to meeting with experts, we organized multiple workshops with our partnership team, iGEM Team Thessaly, on the ethics and data safety of our project. These workshops helped us better understand the responsibility we have as creators of a project to ensure positive impacts on society.

Model

Our computational models provided us insights on how our GutLux-capsule would work in a real-life environment and how we could improve the sensing mechanism. We managed to determine sensitivity rates for our two main metabolites, kynurenic acid and tryptamine, to find out if our capsule is capable of sensing different metabolite concentrations in the gut lumen. We also conducted a docking analysis to find out how we could improve the biological detection mechanism inside the capsule. We docked different metabolites to the main protein of our detection system, aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), to see which amino acid residues affect ligand binding. We also conducted further research on how we could optimize the binding pocket for our target metabolites to avoid false positive signals, since there are multiple unwanted metabolites that can bind to AhR.

Supporting Entrepreneurship

To understand the needs of the targeted end-users, we have met with experts in research and clinical work to gain insights on how we could design the best possible tool to help overcome the challenges of gut microbiota research. We have conducted thorough research on our competitive and local environment to understand our role on the market of ingestible capsules. Furthermore, we have created a clear roadmap for market entry which follows the existing regulations and legislation with the advice from experts in medical device commercialization. Through Integrated Human Practices, we have created valuable connections to our local market segments and become a part of the Finnish Synthetic Biology network, which brings together investors, researchers, and students on a national level. Our entrepreneurial activities have thus created a solid framework for further development of GutLux into a marketable product and ensure the compliance of our design within our market area.