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Team:BGU Israel
From 2013.igem.org
Follow the story of BGU_Israel: Making the dream of Synthetic Biology a reality today!
- Silver Medal
- Best Movie
- Best Presentation
- Advance to World Championship!
Our story began at the middle of the third moon cycle, 2013, in the mysterious desert city of the seven wells - Beer sheva. It all started when two wandering friends heard about the epic journey of iGEM, immediately they knew they want to embark on this adventure. A band of 12 undergrad-adventurers from 10 different disciplines was then assembled for this pioneering quest. Against all odds they managed to learn about iGEM and introduce it to the Uni. Along with public, recruit the instructors, raise the funds create the project and get to the finals! In some encounters it is hinted that they even had fun! We invite you to join our journey to make the synthetic biology dream come true today.
To embark upon the quest, we thought of dozens of crazy ideas but in vain. Even if the idea was truly novel and practical we could not find a way to make it work because we couldn't see how our Magical Genetically-Engineered-Machines could be contained once introduced to the environment. This safety-environmental concern possessed our minds day and night. Alas, we could find neither tools nor weapons to relieve our concerns. Read about the environmental problem
Our first step was to undertake a massive public opinion survey to learn about the current state of public opinion, and hopefully understand the roots of opposition to synthetic biology. We realized that the public concerns stand in the way of new Synthetic Biology products. We also realized that these concerns could be relieved if a self-destructive mechanism was available. Read the full survey analysis.
Taking into consideration the public concerns and the environmental hazards, we had a breakthrough! We will develop a self-destruct mechanism that will allow for safe and controlled usage of any GMO. This could be a step in making the Synthetic Biology Dream become a reality. Read about our project's motivation.
Inspired by this idea, we sketched two different generic systems to be inserted into GEMs under the strict guidelines that the systems have to be both Programmable in the lab and Autonomous of outside environment. We labeled our systems as Programmable Autonomous Self Elimination (P.A.S.E) 1 and 2. Read about our solution.
Watch a video that explains the high-level concepts behind our project.
At this point you must be eager to know how did we make our idea work. We spent day and night in the wet lab, developing and experimenting. Join us and follow the entire process in our experiments & results.
The team's mathematicians worked hard to create a stochastic model that could predict if and to what extent the system could be useful and fail proof. Read more about modelling.
After creating our novel solution, we were excited to go back to the public and spread the word. We embarked on a massive outreach campaign to encourage discourse with the public about synthetic biology, in order to dispel misconceptions and foster debate. Our outreach campaign was aimed at reaching as many people from different communities and age groups as possible. We wanted to burst out of the invisible walls separating the academy from the general public and trigger discussions in a variety of platforms, making the subject accessible to all. Follow our Human Practice activities.
Thank you for following our Journey. Want to know the people behind the project? Come and meet the team.
Our achievements in the European Jamboree:
