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Team:Uppsala/yoghurt
From 2013.igem.org
The next generation of synthetic probiotics
Uppsala iGEM proudly presents a new way of creating nutritious food – by producing healthy substances in probiotic bacteria. As a part of our human practice project we have made a concept yoghurt product. Of course, as a medium for carrying our bacteria we are not only restricted to yoghurt. These probiotics can be provided in a juice, a pill and many other different foods.
The reasons for doing this concept product are as following:
- We felt that we early on in the project wanted to have a clear vision on what our final goal would be.
- This concept product makes it easier for us to explain for the general public what we are doing. We have seen that media and people are more interested in our project when they can envision exactly what we are trying to accomplish.
- By creating this yoghurt, we can use this as a tool to start a debate and discuss future applications of synthetic biology.
Our goal with this yoghurt is to make probiotic cultures produce all of our daily needs. When we use probiotics to produce nutritions, we do exactly what nature has done for us throughout all ages. With this, we can spare our nature, by going into the future with a new way of producing our food.
This is a yoghurt that contains everything in one drink. With this, people can forget about expensive pills and supplements.
Our nutritions are for example produced in the healthy probiotic culture lactobacillus reuteri, which in themselves, are very good for our wellbeing.
In the end, all of the genes producing these different nutritions will be incorporated in the chromosome of our probiotics. This will eliminate the need for antibiotic resistance markers on our final product, thus eliminating the risk of spreading antibiotic resistance in our nature and ingesting them.
