Team:Bielefeld-CeBiTec/Description

Project Overview
This is nanoFactory - a combined system to clean up mining drainage and produce nano particles.

Dual Use

A critical view on Dual Use issues is the principle of considering in which ways the project can be used and misused. After realizing that we never came in touch with this term in our whole academic education we decided to find out more.

Modeling

"Any modeling project should be tempered by the morality of laziness." (Barnes et. al., 2010). We model time until cell death, siRNA/RNAi interaction, ferritin characterization and process control parameters for our cross-flow reactor.

Promoter Collection

Due to the lack of data on precise promoter strength data a new measuring system had to be established.

Toxicity

Metal ions cause hydrogen peroxide to form toxic reactive oxygen species. To counteract, new H2O2 scavenging BioBricks were needed.

Accumulation

The optimization of the transport of metal ions is an important part of our project. New BioBricks, containing different transport protein genes, are required to increase the uptake of metal ions and subsequently the nanoparticle yield.

Silencing

Knocking out copper exporters causes cell death. Precise control over the translation process leads to a better growth condition for the cell.

Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles are materials on nano-scale. They show different physical properties and thus, are of high interest for industry, medicine and science.

Reactor

To filter high amounts of mining drainage without releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment we decided to design, construct and optimize a controllable cross-flow reactor.

Proof of Concept

To demostrate the usage of our formed nanoparticles, we investigated different applications for these nanoparticles through synthetic biology.