Team:USTC CHINA

Based on the fundamental principles and technology of synthetic biology, our team aims at designing a new immune system containing transdermal peptide that expresses genes and produces immune responses simultaneously. To reach this goal, we need to build four kinds of engineered bacteria and find out effective immune responses. Meanwhile, an appropriate reporting system guiding vaccination at different stages is also required to meet the demand of practical, safe and human-friendly production. The Bacillus subtilis we use is WB800N, which is modified into four types of engineered bacteria, combined with the gene coding LTB, HBsAg, reporter, and LC Luman-recruiting factor respectively, each of which contains the gene coding transdermal peptide. Then, the engineered bacteria will produce mixture of fusion protein in the skin and activate immune responses.

The introducing of transdermal peptide, together with the simultaneous immune response with protein expression, has granted our work great advantages over other existing immune system, both in economy and operation. Therefore it is expected to become a promising new vaccine research field.

So far, we have successfully synthesize four kinds of plasmids, and the sequences of them all have been proved correct. Additionally, we have managed to transform three plasmids from E. coli to Bacillus subtilis, leaving GFP in progress.

For the coming days, we plan to continue our transformation and experiment on the mice to check the effects of our vaccine, whereas other tasks, such as human practice and the standardization of our parts, are in our future schedule.