Bronze Medal
Project Attributions
Team members' detailed attributions and the help our team received from others are listed on the attribution page following the proper form. Read more about the page Here.
Project Description
Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a common pathogen that often causes skin infections and food poisoning. Recent research also shows that the human digestive tract is its long-ignored reservoir. Our project develops an efficient and cost-effective detection and elimination kit for S. aureus. Detection is accomplished by heterogeneous application of the S. aureus quorum sensing (QS) pathway. Autoinducer peptides (AIPs) in the pathway act as intercellular communication molecules and activate the P2 promoter, further inducing E. coli lysis through endolysin SPN1S_Lys RZ, releasing S. aureus-specific Endolysin ClyC, LysDZ25, LysGH15, and antimicrobial peptide (AMP) LL-37 to achieve elimination. We employed the ssDNA aptamer PA#2/8 to detect elimination success, which binds with Protein A, a unique membrane protein of S. aureus. Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and Enzyme-Linked Oligonucleotide Assay (ELONA) are used to confirm the successful formation of the binding complex and select the optimal version of the aptamer.
Contribution
Our team contributed to further investigating the LL-37's sterilizing effects. We both documented new findings of LL-37's effect on S.aureus, and the part was further characterized by sterilizing S. aureus under different LL-37 concentrations, and our team measured the bactericidal effects and the OD value of the bacteria solution with the change of time, adding new data to the part page. (BBa_K1162006) Secondly, our team also contributed to the troubleshooting and documented the potential mistakes that need to be avoided. (EMSA) The protocols and the troubleshooting processes are listed below. Read more about the page Here.
Silver Medal
Engineering success
Our team engineered the two endolysins' bactericidal effects (DZ-25 and Spn1S), targeting S. aureus and E. coli, respectively. By documenting the three engineering cycles, including the process engaging with Design, Build, Test, and Learning, our team presented the DZ-25 endolysin engineering cycle, the Spn1S engineering cycle, and the combination of the DZ25 and Spn1S engineering cycle. More of our engineering Success is detailed on our Engineering Success page. Read more about this page Here.
Human Practices
To find the potential fit people of our detection kit and to make our detection kit more user-friendly, we designed the questionnaire of the detection kit to find out the potential real-life implementation of our detection kit. Read more about this page Here.
Gold Medal
Best New Basic Part
Our team contributed a GH15 basic part. (BBa_K4593003). Read more about this page Here.
Integrated Human practice
Our team consulted experts and doctors who related to our project, including Dr. Li, who helped us with conceptualization, and Dr. Luo, who helped us with developing the “Aptamer Detect” Module. Read more about this page Here.
Education and Communication
Our team's education and outreach activities spanned across Junior High School, Senior School, and the university, and each activity was explicitly curated for each learning stage. Our Education process breaks down into three steps:
1. The essential information and background of Synthetic Biology.
2. The basic biotechnique introduction, including PCR and genetic cloning.
3. How we apply the theoretically synthetic knowledge in real-life circumstances.
We presented the lecture to BIT undergraduates and Beijing National Day School juniors and seniors.
Education was also down by an art exhibition; we designed an agar art exhibition within our school and showed the beauty of agar arts to the general public in our school. Read more about the page Here.