Oyinade Adefuye
Will DeLoache
Jim Dickson
Andrew Martens
Amber Shoecraft
Mike Waters

A. Malcolm Campbell
Karmella Haynes
Laurie Heyer

Jordan Baumgardner
Tom Crowley
Lane H. Heard
Nickolaus Morton
Michelle Ritter
Jessica Treece
Matthew Unzicker
Amanda Valencia

Todd Eckdahl
Jeff Poet

Background Information


Current Project: Solving the Hamiltonian Path Problem in vivo


Mathematical Modeling


Gene Splitting


Results


Traveling Salesperson Problem


Software


Resources and Citations

As a part of iGEM2006, a combined team from Davidson College and Missouri Western State University reconstituted a hin/hix DNA recombination mechanism which exists in nature in Salmonella as standard biobricks for use in E. coli. The purpose of the 2006 combined team was to provide a proof of concept for a bacterial computer in using this mechanism to solve a variation of The Pancake Problem from Computer Science. This task utilized both biology and mathematics students and faculty from the two institutions.

For 2007, we continue our collaboration and our efforts to manipulate E. coli into mathematics problem solvers as we refine our efforts with the hin/hix mechanism to explore another mathematics problem, the Hamiltonian Path Problem. This problem was the subject of a groundbreaking paper by Adleman in 1994 (see citations) where a unique Hamiltonian path was found in vitro for a particular directed graph on seven nodes. We propose to make progress toward solving the particular problem in vivo.

The Adleman graph.