IGEM 2019
In 2019, for the first time, an undergraduate team at Maastricht University took part in the synthetic biology competition in Boston. The team aimed to create a tool for detection and recognition of any target molecule.
We are MSP-Maastricht, an undergraduate team from the Maastricht Science Programme. For the first time we are going to participate in the international and prestigious iGEM competition that revolves around synthetic biology. At the end of this 6 months competition we will present our project and results at the iGEM jamboree in Boston.
Our project is focused on the development of a tool for evolving and selecting new receptors for biomarker recognition. The application of naturally occurring receptors is limited by the range of molecules they can detect naturally. In our project, we will use a CRISPR-based method to induce random mutations into known surface receptors with non-functional binding sites. Once the mutations lead to a receptor with a binding site matching the intended target, a system will become active that will stop the generation of mutations and simultaneously gives a color signal. We hope that our idea will yield an easy-to-use tool for researchers who are interested in detection and recognition of specific molecules or biomarkers.
