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Team Cardiff - RNAphid
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/e/e3/T--Cardiff_Wales--BestPlantSynBio.png)
Winners of the Undergraduate 'Best Plant Synthetic Biology' Award and a Gold Medal
To do this, we are using RNAi to target the aphids key genes that enable the survival of their symbiont, Buchnera aphidicola, by targeting genes essential for the development of specialised aphid cells called bacteriocytes. These genes are of the BCR and SP gene families.
We are testing these constructs in Nicotiana benthamiana against the aphid pest Myzus persicae . See our Description page for more details!