Project Description

From 2007.igem.org

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Our project for iGEM 2007 involves modeling the dynamics of the spread of an epidemic within a population.  The model will be multiscale, specifically covering the molecular biology of the phage-host interaction, the spread of the phage within an isolated subpopulation, and the spread of the phage between artificially connected
 
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subpopulations.  Integrating these levels of modeling to produce varying high-level population epidemic behavior by
 
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changing, for example, promoter strengths for the production of relevant proteins is one of the key aspects of our
 
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project.  Building an understanding of high-level dynamics from the very lowest level of organization will
 
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demonstrate our ability to more accurately predict the epidemiological outcome.
 
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For our host and phage we will use E. Coli and lambda phage respectively.  We select this host-phage pair because
 
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they are both so well understood and documented and therefore we can more easily model their interaction,
 
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particularly at the molecular level.  Lambda phage is also interesting because it can either immediately replicate
 
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itself and kill the host cell or it can insert its DNA and lie dormant.  This adds a degree of flexibility to our
 
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model that allows us to check the model robustness for slightly different phage.  As part of the project we have
 
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designed a reporter plasmid to generate florescent proteins to indicate which pathway the virus has taken.  This
 
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plasmid, along with the use of a phage modified to be florescent, will allow us to determine how the population acts
 
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and verify our models.
 
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At the highest level of our modeling we will use air traffic data with 96-well plates and a liquid handling
 
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system to indicate how a virus might spread via air traffic.  Since a person can now get around the world before a
 
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virus manifests symptoms, this information is relevant to epidemiological studies.  Using this model we can examine
 
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how shutting down certain airports or groups of airports might help to limit or prevent the spread of a virus
 
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through air travel.
 

Revision as of 18:55, 22 May 2007

This page needs to be moved to your team's pages. It is not a Project Description for all of iGEM. It should have a name like

MYTEAM/Project Description