Team:UNILausanne
B.O.T: Bacterial Oscillation Therapy
timing matters
Our achivements:
GOLD MEDAL
BEST MEASUREMENT
Nomination for Best Education
Nomination for Best Composite Part
Nomination for Best Part Collection
Scroll down to follow the bacteria and discover our project!
First time iGEMers
We are 12 motivated students, from University of Lausanne, Switzerland. This is the first time our university takes part in the iGEM competition and we strive to do our best. Meet us here: Team!
Colorectal cancer
Abbreviated "CRC", colorectal cancer is the third most common one (1.8 milion cases in 2018), and the second deadliest (862'000 deaths in 2018) [1]. It's a growing problem, with predicted incidence increse of over 60% by 2040. [2] You can learn more about it here: Project Description & Motivation
Current treatment
Many techniques are combined for an effective cancer treatement, notably chemotheraphy, surgery and radiotherapy. Chemotheraphy and surgery however have shown limited effectiveness against CRC, especially in a later stages of the disease. [3]
Chronotherapy
Also called "chronotherapeutics", it is the administration of medication or treatment in coordination with the body's circadian rhythm to maximize effectiveness and minimize side effects. [4]
Our design
We introduced an oscillating system into a probiotic bacteria. It can simply be ingested by the patient and it will go to the tumor. There, it will produce oscillations and secrete azurin - an anticancer peptide - at specific timepoints. Check out how we made it: Design
Modelling
Our modelling subteam worked hard to give us the best predictions. We adapted an ODE model of the repressilator, built a model defining individual bateria to assess their influence in the emergent population signal, and even simulated a kill switch! Dive right in: Model
Safety
We used a bacterial strain naturally present in human microbiota, called E. coli Nissle 1917, which preferentially targets the tumour environment. To make sure that the organisms we created will not escape alive, we made a kill switch. Take a look at how the kill switch works! Safety & Results
Proposed implementation
We have made a business plan and looked at how we could introduce our project on the market, as well as deliver the bacteria with encapsulations. If you want to know more click here: Implementation
Human Practices
We wanted to make a positive impact on society. We have talked about gender equality in STEM, asked people about GMO and consulted the experts about safety. Give it a look: Human Practices
Collaborations
We hosted, along with two other Swiss teams, the SwissGEM 2020 meet-up to present and talk about our projects as well as to meet other students interested in synthetic biology. We also collaborated with many foreign teams throughout the summer! See what we did together: Collaborations
Thank you
Our iGEM project was a lot of hard work, creativity, research, problem-solving, determination, questions, reaching out, meeting people, looking for answers, changing our minds, going back and pushing through. We are proud of our work and we would like to thank you for reading our wiki!
