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From 2013hs.igem.org

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This year, a team of students from St Paul’s School, London, has decided to take up the challenge of competing in the IGEM competition - the first to represent the UK at High School Level. Our aim is to mutate E.coli to create a semi-quantitative lactose detector; we intend to create three mutant operons on a single plasmid, with each operon responding to a different concentration of lactose in the environment the E.coli finds itself in.

We plan to use red, yellow and green fluorescent proteins in a “traffic light” system, whereby the colour of the protein translated corresponds to the concentration of lactose, with red fluorescent protein denoting a high concentration of lactose, yellow fluorescent protein representing a low concentration of lactose and green fluorescent protein showing that there is no lactose present in the immediate environment the E.coli is exposed to. It is our hope that this could potentially be used in allergy testing and in the analysis of food samples, and by individuals who are lactose intolerant; because we hope to design a semi-quantitative detector it will show a spectrum of lactose concentrations so mild intolerants and severe intolerants will be able to use the sensor in different ways.

So far we have been designing our project and selecting appropriate biobricks for use in each operon. We have also been using the 3A assembly kit to practice assembling biobricks on a plasmid backbone. During the past year, the team has also been involved in a plasmid mutagenesis project to modify T4 bacteriophage lysozyme, and in so doing we have practiced many of the lab techniques needed for biobrick assembly.