Team:Queens Canada

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Welcome to the Queen's University iGEM homepage!

Queen's University is located in Kingston, Ontario, a small city located on the eastern side of Canada. Their igem team is composed of dedicated students who have devoted their summer to working with synthetic biology, toiling away in labs and of course, having a blast. This year our project initially began as an idea to remove foot odour. It eventually evolved to a much wider idea involving mosquitoes, malaria, and of course smelly feet! To find out more about what we've been up to, keep reading!
  • Repel.

    First, we plan to eliminate foot odor with engineered bacteria and replace it with natural mosquito repellants. This will make it more difficult for mosquitoes to find their hosts, without the risk of the insects developing resistance.

  • Attract.

    Second, we intend to devise a mosquito trap where bacteria will synthesize the chemicals found in foot and body odour. Once the mosquitoes are trapped, we aim to resolve further disease by infecting the mosquitoes to sterilize, control, or destroy the vectors.

Current research has shown that mosquitoes, primarily those that carry deadly diseases, such as Malaria, are attracted to human body odour – specifically the feet. We plan to take advantage of this finding and, utilizing the power of synthetic biology, work towards an effective solution for Malaria, West Nile Virus, Dengue Fever, and other mosquito-borne diseases. As a famous man once said,

"The foot giveth and the foot taketh away".

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