Team:Shenzhen SFLS/Project

From 2013hs.igem.org

Shenzhen_SFLS is the first time to take part in iGEM High School Competition and 2013 is the first year there are 4 chinese teams entered the lists. SFLS is one of the top high schools in Shenzhen and there are all the best students in Shenzhen, China. With the guidance from BGI-Shenzhen, we aim to build fantastic and useful genetic circuits.
Shenzhen_SFLS iGEM team was set up in October 2012, after the iGEM Collegiate Division in Asia. The team leader watched the jamboree and he was deeply attracted by the great game. He found 7 students who followed him overcame the difficulties and obstacles. In october 2013, they went to BGI to study how to make a gene circuit。	Your team picture
	Team Shenzhen_SFLS

Team

Peilin Li:Teacher of SFLS and the instructor of SFLS students.

Kang Kang: the advisor of SFLS students. In BGI, K2 is veeeeery famous for lurking on BBS and sarcasm! As a former champion in a national robot contest, a hacker, a web engineer, a designer, a magazine editor, a citizen reporter, a filmmaker and a drama actor, he has always too many wonderings, including how life works on its core database - genome. Cracking and hacking the code of life, making actors in cell perform on his scripts, has become the primary task of this young scientist.

Hekang Jia: the captain of SFLS students, set his sights on get the only grand prize. The boy who set up the team by himself，has strong desire to make everthing best. He is often very serious in team's seminar and made others under pressure. He is also the leader of team's students working on theoretical derivation.

Biwei Zheng: the associate captain of SFLS students.The boy has the sense of responsibility for his team and the program. He has a great enthusiasm in Molecular biology and he really enjoy learning it.Besides these,the boy has many hobits and very popular among his friends.

Ruping Liu: Conscientious and careful to anything. She’s interested in biology, not only because of its diversity but also its mystery. Her dream is to do something which is useful to the world in the future. The girl is working on reading paper and do some experiments in SFLS iGEM team.

Kang Li: Eric Lee is a senior one student in SFLS and is responsible for the team’s communication group. He has a strong desire in biology and is very good at communicating with people. He is in charge of contacting with the headquaters and other teams. He is a good speaker too. Eric is looking forward to helping the team more.

Ziying Tan: Tina is studying in SFLS Class 7 Grade 10. Aside from spending time before the computer or in the lab, she enjoys rubber sculpture and reading.She is now one of the leaders of vacation club. She couldn`t think of a better way to enjoy her summer in school than joining Shenzhen SFLS IGEM team!

Jeffrey Sanders: Jeff is a conversational English teacher at SFLS. A recent college graduate, he majored in molecular biology at Cameron University in Lawton, OK and will be attending graduate school for epidemiology this Fall. He serves as an adviser for the SFLS iGEM team and helps the team bounce ideas.

Project

Too much phosphorus in the body can be just as harmful as having too little. Likewise, too much phosphorus in lakes and streams can have negative side effects on the surrounding environment. The process we have created of degrading phosphates in an aqueous solution uses two engineered devices on the same construct.

The first device contains a phosphate sensitive promoter (name of promoter), a gfp gene (name of gene), and a Lac gene (name of gene).

The second device contains a Lac sensitive promoter, an rfp gene, and a gene that codes for a polyphosphatase. In the presence of high concentrations of phosphate, the Lac sensitive promoter is turned on and the production of Lac is allowed. After a certain threshold of Lac is made, the Lac sensitive promoter is turned on and the production of polyphosphatase is allowed. The polyphosphatase then degrades phosphates present in the solution. The production of GFP is used as a visual marker for the production of Lac and the production of RFP is used as a visual marker for the production of polyphosphatase. In a timed experiment, GFP should be seen first. After enough Lac is made RFP should then be seen. Upon the degradation of phosphates, the termination of both of these proteins should follow.

Notebook

Show us how you spent your days.

Results/Conclusions

What did you achieve over the course of your semester?

Safety

What safety precautions did your team take? Did you take a safety training course? Were you supervised at all times in the lab?

Attributions

Who worked on what?

Backgrounds

Too much phosphorus in the body can be just as harmful as having too little. Likewise, too much phosphorus in lakes and streams can have negative side effects on the surrounding environment, it will make the water eutrophication.

Water eutrophication can be human-caused or natural. Untreated sewage effluent and agricultural run-off carrying fertilizers are examples of human-caused eutrophication. However, it also occurs naturally in situations where nutrients accumulate (e.g. depositional environments), or where they flow into systems on an ephemeral basis. Eutrophication generally promotes excessive plant growth and decay, favouring simple algae and plankton over other more complicated plants, and causes a severe reduction in water quality. Phosphorus is a necessary nutrient for plants to live, and is the limiting factor for plant growth in many freshwater ecosystems. The addition of phosphorus increases algal growth, but not all phosphates actually feed algae.[2] These algae assimilate the other necessary nutrients needed for plants and animals. When algae die they sink to the bottom where they are decomposed and the nutrients contained in organic matter are converted into inorganic form by bacteria. The decomposition process uses oxygen and deprives the deeper waters of oxygen which can kill fish and other organisms. Also the necessary nutrients are all at the bottom of the aquatic ecosystem and if they are not brought up closer to the surface, where there is more available light allowing for photosynthesis for aquatic plants, a serious strain is placed on algae populations. Enhanced growth of aquatic vegetation or phytoplankton and algal blooms disrupts normal functioning of the ecosystem, causing a variety of problems such as a lack of oxygen needed for fish and shellfish to survive. The water becomes cloudy, typically coloured a shade of green, yellow, brown, or red. Eutrophication also decreases the value of rivers, lakes, and estuaries for recreation, fishing, hunting, and aesthetic enjoyment. Health problems can occur where eutrophic conditions interfere with drinking water treatment.

Human Practices

Even though our human practises have just started. We have already done something. We invited the school's TV&Broadcast Center to shoot an advertising video for our team. This can make contribution to us and let more people know iGEM, as well as Synthetic Biology.

More human practises are preparing. Please do look forward to it.

Fun!

What was your favorite team snack?? Have a picture of your team mascot?

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