Solution: a novel synthetic biology approach hijacking E. coli secretion pathways to export biofilm-disrupting and antimicrobial proteins
The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is a synthetic biology competition between undergraduate teams from across the globe. In this, the competition’s 11thyear, there are over 240 teams participating from 5 continents. Over the course of a summer each team works on a synthetic biology project of their own design before presenting at international Jamboree. Based at MIT, iGEM also maintains a registry of standard parts for synthetic biology generated mainly by the student competitors.

2015 is the second year to see an entry from Oxford University by an interdisciplinary team of 14 undergraduates from biochemistry, engineering, chemistry, physics and biology. Working with PI Professor Judy Armitage and supervisors Dr George Wadhams and Dr Chris Jones they have investigated the Sec and flagellar export pathways for the purposes of secreting antibiofilm/antimicrobial proteins as a novel treatment for urinary tract infections (UTIs)

The students will be presenting the talk they will take to the iGEM competition Giant Jamboree in Boston, MA the following week.

To find out more, see the team’s wiki page:
2015.igem.org/Team:Oxford
Date: 22 October 2015, 14:00 (Thursday, 2nd week, Michaelmas 2015)
Venue: Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3QU
Venue Details: Main Seminar Room
Speaker: Oxford iGEM 2015
Organising department: Department of Biochemistry
Organiser contact email address: christopher.jones2@bioch.ox.ac.uk
Part of: General Talks
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editors: Anne Bowtell, Sian Annely