Bronze
We achieved all the requirements for the bronze prize as follows:
Competition Deliverables
#1 Wiki Wiki Page
#2 Poster Poster Page
#3 Presentation Video Presentation Video Page
#4 Project Promotion Video Project Promotion Video Page
#5 Judging Form Judging Form Page
Attributions Attributions Page
Project Description Project Description Page
Contribution Contribution Page
Silver
We also met all the needs for silver medals:
Engineering Success Engineering Success Page
Collaboration Collaboration Page
Human Practices Human Practices Page
Proposed Implementation Proposed Implementation Page
Gold
We met five gold criteria, exceeding the required two:
Integrated Human Practices Integrated Human Practices Page
Improvement of an Existing Part Improvement of an Existing Part Page
Project Modeling Project Modeling Page
Proof of Concept Proof of Concept Page
Science Communication Science Communication Page
Special Prizes
Best Model Project Modeling Page
Overview
In this part, modeling team created three models to describe or predict some essential fact of our project. The first model is created to predict the influence of different RPA temperature and target DNA concentration in the experiment. This modeling is based on Michaelis-Menten equation and show consistence with our experiment results. The second modeling created a Neural Network (NN) based on TensorFlow to predict the binding capacity of protein-Aptamer. This modeling is an innovative way to find the influence factor during the binding between protein and Aptamer. The Neural Network (NN) helped us to roll out unimportant factors among hundreds of parameters. The prediction results also show consistence with the existing data. The last modeling is a physical model. This model provides theoretical evidence to our hardware part. This modeling revealed the process how a liquid membrane can carry particles and focused on the physical theory itself, which shows interdisciplinary feature in iGEM.
Best Integrated Human Practices Integrated Human Practices
Overview
Our project focuses on the detection of antibiotic residues in the environment and antibiotic- resistance genes from the patients’ samples. In doing so, we seamless integrated human practices into our project advancement. We contacted 10 people from different areas, including researchers, doctors, farmers and government inspectors to learn about their individual requirements, ask for suggestions to improve our design. For instance, our product involves an integrated, automatic operation to save labor as the hospitals are always lack of hands. We also separated our detection process into two reaction steps, from pressing version to the final electromagnet version based on their suggestions, which helps make our module portable and prevent the contamination. We also added extra tubes to expand detection range and increase volume capacity of detection. After our initial design, we demonstrated it to potential users, the officials from CADCP and doctors we interacted before. We received valuable ideas to improve my design. Integrated Human practices played a significant role in our project, shaping our project from an idea into a product for the potential customers.
Best New Basic Part Engineering Success Page
Overview
By making good use of aptamer, we can transform molecule signal to specific nucleic acid signal. We summarized a brand-new designing norm of locked activator and modifying aptamer based on the simplest base complementation pairing rule, which can be used as a reference for subsequent teams. This method features an additional sequence at the front and end of the aptamer, which can then lock the activator DNA that is picked relatively randomly. Our design of Aptemer Sandwich can be a useful tool for future teams who want to try something in aptamer sensing.
Best New Composite Part Improvement Page
Overview
Now AsCas12a can only recognize three PAM sequences, TTTV PAM sequence (V can be A, C, or G), which limits its detection ability for perfect protospacer is rare.But, if we can enlarge Cas12a's compatibility of PAMs, operators will have more choices when selecting protospacers and can design better DNA targets. To achieve this, we introduced four point mutations (S542R, K548V, N552R and E174R) based on two latest articles, aiming to improve its compatibility of PAMs and its cleavage activity. According to our test, our optomized Cas12a can now recognize three additional PAM sequences. When binding normal PAMs, our Cas12a variants also shows higher activity. Thus, the most recent breakthroughs concerning Cas12a were brought into the collection of standard biological parts and future teams can use the optimized Cas12a.
Best Part Collection Parts Collection Page
Overview
This year, we created many innovative parts and did experiment to successfully tested them. We have also carefully documented them for the future iGEMers making good use of our own-designed parts. Among them, our Aptamer Sandwich, Cas12a-RVRR, and the RPA efficiency testing method were tested to be very useful.
