Our chemical detector is not designed for one substance only. In fact, with a wide range of promotors available, our product can be used to detect a diverse selection of substances, and therefore can be applied to a lot of areas and scenarios. It can be used detect human molecular indicators, identify and monitor pollutants in water and soil, measure the amount heavy metals, analyze nutrients in food, etc.
Below are two promoter libraries from iGEM official containing 214 synthetic promoters with sequence consensus. Take copper promotor as example: When the transcription and translation work of T7 promotor is completed, When the Cu ion promoter initiates the lysis of the bacteria gene, releasing the beta-galactosidases, which then interacts with the X-gal Galactosidases and the testing sample to produce the blue substance that indicates the presense of copper.
Therefore, as long as the users are able to obtain the corresponding promotors to the substances, it's possible to detect any possible chemicals, as listed in the promotor library. Hence, in comparison with currently existed detectors, our team makes an affordable, efficient and portable detector that is universally applicable, which would provide great convenience and efficiency for a wide range of industries and researchers, as well as future iGEM teams.
Our team designed a testing kit that includes the materials, devices and instruction book. View More in Our Hardware Page. This kit is designed to be in small volume, so it can be placed without taking up much space, which in turn contribute to its low transport cost. The apparatus used for detection are also mostly affordable scientific instruments. With this portable, low-cost testing kit, our team managed to create a chemical analysis system that not only serves the minority of professionals, but anyone who wishes to apply our project into other industries. We hope that our detector can help to attain actual social and environmental benefits through this technology.
The goal of our detection module is high efficiency and low cost, but we encountered an tricky problem in the process of using our detection module -- a centrifuge costs $400- $500, which is slightly expensive in terms of price. At the same time, for non-professionals, its improper operation may lead to danger. In addition, experts in the laboratory know that centrifuges are not particularly convenient to move, which is an important consideration for people working outdoors.
Therefore, we designed and made a centrifugal machine using simple and low-cost materials. The functionality of the machine was at first unsatisfactory, but after several discussions with professionals, we made numerous improvements to the centrifugal machine, eventually reaching the effective centrifugation level. More detailed information is presented in the hardware section.View More in Our Hardware Page
By designing such a light, cheap but useful machine, we successfully cut down the overall price of our detecting system, making it mroe available for small-sclae laboratories and research teams to use.
Our team produced a legislation proposal that gives lots of recommendations regarding the current Chinese biosafety law. (see safety-legislation proposal section). In this proposal, we explained the role of lysis module in the treatment of waste microorganisms, improved the existing standards for the preservation, use and destruction of bacteria, proposed the deficiencies and possible improvements of the current biosafety management system, and discussed how to enhance the public's awareness of biosafety. Moreover, in order to make a sound and comprehensive proposal, we studied closely the current Chinese biosafety law, read and evaluated relevant literature, and conducted social science research ourselves. Overall, we believe that not only the proposal itself, but also the researches and literature review we made during the exploring process will provide certain insight to future researchers and teams in this field. We genuinely hope that the effort we made could help to enhance the biosafety manaement system and help to improve relevant regulation and legislation.
