Week 1: June 5th & 7th

==June 5th==

Group discussion concerning the project idea to be carried forward - favouring the 'Anti cancer project' Roles were then assigned to team members present for intial research roles for the week:

Cancer research roles:

1. Ruxi Comisel - Proteins upregulated in cancer of the intestines. Specifically in the outer epithelial cell (enterocytes) – in microvilli. Also, what actually is... gut cancer? A general overview would be useful…

2. Kaicheng Kiew - Our chassis (bearing in mind that we will also build it in E. coli as a backup). We need to think what would make a good chassis in our case (ie. naturally found in the gut in an obvious one), and how well does the chassis fit.

3. Alex Bates - What will the killing mechanism be? A broad overview of cancer treatments is required, specifically detailing how a bacterium can administer the treatment. Considerations:

The bacteria may secrete a toxin etc – how will we ensure that it doesn’t simply diffuse through the gut? If it is a toxin, what sort of biosynthetic pathway is required?

Does the bacteria trigger apoptosis in the cancer cells (ie. an intracellular killing mechanism)? How can this be done from an extracellular bacterium? Perhaps beta-arrestin?

Are there any treatments which we can take advantage of specifically because we are using bacteria? For example, a protein which creates holes in the cancer cells? I think the important point is this: does using a bacterium open up the possibility of using a different cure that currently isn’t in use because we cannot target it to cancer cells – could the use of bacteria allow this?

4. Weiling Yuan - Targeting – do we use antibodies? What previous projects have used bacteria expressing antibodies? Are there any other ways of doing this? Perhaps the latching and initiation mechanisms can be incorporated into one protein?

5. StJohn Townsend - Initiation – mechanoreceptor activated upon latching? What other ways are there of doing this?

6. Tom Johnson - Past iGEM projects which we could incorporate into our own:
Cancer projects, Gut projects, Protein engineering, Antibodies expressed in bacteria etc.

==June 7th==

The group discusses findings from the initial reasearch - further agreement that the 'Anti Cancer' project seemed to be the best idea, preparation of 'project sheets' to be sent to Dr. Darren Nesbeth for review and subsequent meetings.