Davidson 2006

From 2006.igem.org

Project Overview Davidson Parts Team Members Tools and Resources Check out our [http://www.bio.davidson.edu/courses/synthetic/photos/FlapJack_HotCakes.html Official Team Photo]

Left to Right: Malcolm, Laurie, Sabriya, Erin and Lance

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Goal
Our goal is to mathematically model and genetically engineer a biological system that can compute the solution to a puzzle called the 'pancake problem'. Our work was done in collaboration with the Missouri Western iGEM Team and an undergraduate research fellow from Hampton University.

Approach

What: Our goal is to solve the Pancake problem[http://www.cut-the-knot.org/SimpleGames/Flipper.shtml] in a biological system.

When: Summer and Fall '06

Where: Missouri Western State University and Davidson College

Why: Because we love breakfast... well most of us.

How: Trying to invert antibiotic resistance genes using the Hin/Hix inversion method found in Salmonella typhimurium.

• Our overall goal was to see if we could use synthetic methods to construct an E. coli computer. If we grew 10¹⁵ cells, and each cell was attempting to solve the problem, then even rare events might be solvable by E. coli computers.

• We decided to tackle the burnt pancake problem since DNA, like burnt pancakes, has a directionality. We needed a way to flip the DNA and chose the Hin/Hix system. We had to isolate RE, HixC from S. typhimurium strain XX (need to insert name), and Hin from S. typhimurium, strain TA100 .

• We decided to test the size constraints first, so we are building stacks of pancakes only one high at first. We will try to flip the promoter (smaller) in one case, and the coding region (bigger) in another case. The coding region is Tet^R resistance gene isolated from a plasmid in the Registry. For higher stacks of pancakes, we will also use chloramphenicol^R and cycloheximide^R.

Students