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iGEM Concordia 2013
Concordia University is participating in iGEM 2014: the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition.
This is a unique opportunity for aspiring scientists and engineers to take a peek at the leading edge of Bioengineering research.
Concordia received a bronze medal!
2013 - Comput-E.coli
Track: Information Processing
Our aim is to achieve universally computational cells through the exploitation of cell-cell communication to generate biological cellular automata. To acheive this, we are using an array of E.coli colonies, which implement the same logical functionality while using different input/output interfaces. The strains process their inputs (two inputs from neighbors plus their own current state) to decide what their next state will be, after the application of a global clock.
At the heart of our project is the construction of the clock, to synchronize information processing. We are making a fusion protein of ETR1 form A.thaliana and EnvZ from E.coli to allow cells to respond to ethylene gas concentrations. All cells will produce this gas at cyclic intervals, thus creating a truly autonomous clock. We have also devised an RNA-based system that can process information reliably and expediently with the use of ribozyme-based XOR and AND gates.