Berkeley UC

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Revision as of 13:59, 11 September 2007

The global demand and importance for cheap, available, and disease free blood substitutes is undisputed. There are currently no red blood cell substitutes approved for clinical use in the US or the UK, and whole blood is almost always in short supply. Underdeveloped countries that need blood the most simply don’t have the infrastructure to support donation and storage, in addition a sizeable fraction of the population are disease carriers. We are developing an innovative and cheap blood substitute based on engineered E. coli with all the critical properties of human erythrocytes. These include the ability to safely exist in the bloodstream, carry oxygen, and be stored for prolonged periods in a freeze-dried state.

==>too detailed, move to a later section:

section on chasis: to make it safer to inject into the human bloodstream, and by adding components for oxygen delivery. A modified lipopolysaccharide should significantly (1000-10000x) reduce sepsis activity in the human bloodstream. section on oxygen carrying: A hemoglobin mutated to increase OD50 to match that of natural human blood cells after diphosphoglycerase. Heme and cytochrome B5 and B5 reductase complement the hemoglobin. Additional chaperone proteins such as sodC, HPI-katG, map, and AHSP were added to increase hardiness and prolong the half-life of the E. coli in the bloodstream. We are also investigating myoglobin, and section on freeze-drying: potential freeze-drying to preserve E. coli, with OtsA, OtsB, thpA through D (trehalose - ots) (hydroxyectoine).

Support for Berkeley iGEM 2007 was generously provided by SynBERC and The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.