HOME | CJUH-JLU-China-iGEM2023

In 2020, there were 2.3 million women diagnosed with breast cancer and 685 000 deaths globally.
Breast cancer is the cancer with the highest morbidity and mortality among women.
Roughly half of all breast cancers occur in women with no specific risk factors other than sex and age.
Approximately 0.5-1% of breast cancers occur in men.

Late detection always causes patients missing out the best treatment period. However, traditional breast cancer diagnosis method like invasive tissue biopsy is often accompanied by pain of patients.

In order to achieve early breast cancer detection, we designed BreFast -- A fast and convenient breast cancer screening kit.

First of all, we identified a suitable biomarker of breast cancer, miR-21-5p, through bioinformatics analysis.
Subsequently, we engineered a CRISPR/Cas13a system to target miR-21-5p, and verified the cleavage activity of this CRISPR/Cas13a system by simulation and experiments.
Finally, we combined this CRISPR/Cas13a system with lateral flow strips to distinguish samples with high or low levels of miR-21-5p expression.

We are well aware of the importance of keeping dialogue with the world throughout the progress of the project. Through in-depth communication with professionals and the general public, BreFast has won plenty of recognition. The awareness of breast health care is deeply rooted in the hearts of people through absorbing and interactive activities with different communities. Meanwhile, consultation with venture capital investors and pharmaceutical companies has raised glimmers of hope for commercialization of BreFast. We are also proud that our sharing and mutual assistance with other iGEM teams have created a better iGEM community.

It is our responsibility to popularize synthetic biology and to publicize iGEM to more people. In order to make the knowledge forest of synthetic biology more lush, we have planted the seeds of synthetic biology in our children's minds at every stage of education which contains primary school, middle school, high school and university. We also went to remote mountain areas to support education, achieving fairness and inclusiveness of education. We are very happy to promote the values of equality and kindness and carry out various forms of activities in the progress of education.

Please visit on a computer.