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Laure Nannini requested to merge main-patch-2a57 into main

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Bronze Medal Criterion #3

Describe how and why you chose your iGEM project.

Please see the 2023 Medals Page for more information.

What should this page contain?

  • The mosquito, responsible for more than 750,000 annual deaths, has earned the distinction of being the most lethal creature on Earth. Its deadly reputation, however, stems not from its size or predatory nature, but rather from its role as a carrier for numerous diseases. Especially the tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus known for its aggressive biting behavior and ability to transmit various diseases, including Chikungunya, Dengue fever, and Zika virus. To enhance research efforts in this area, our objective is to develop an automated detection system capable of identifying pathogenic viruses within a specific mosquito population. This system will rely on the SHERLOCK method, a cutting-edge approach to detection and diagnosis.
  • Our decision to focus on mosquitoes from the significant challenges they pose in our region, making them a pressing concern and a prominent research subject. Numerous teams from different institutes have expressed their interest in this area, motivating us to develop a detection method that can streamline research efforts and contribute to the field. Inspired by the work of our predecessors, we have adopted the SHERLOCK technique as our foundation. This approach utilizes Cas nucleases combined with a guide sequence that complements the viral RNA. When the viral sequence is identified, the Cas nuclease not only cleaves it but also cleaves the surrounding region, resulting in the release of a fluorescent molecule called FAM. Detection of FAM fluorescence serves as an indicator of viral presence. In the initial phase, we embarked on a comparison between two Cas nucleases: the one employed by last year's team, Cas13a and a novel protein, CasRX, chosen by our own team. We evaluated their efficiency at various concentrations of viral sequences that we designed and had synthesized from Chikungunya and West Nile DNA. In the subsequent phase, we will proceed to test these Cas nucleases using a solution containing crushed mosquitoes, infected by inactivated viruses provided by our partner research team. Concurrently, we are actively working on modeling a machine that can automate the entire process and enable multiplexing of the technique, thereby enhancing its efficiency and scalability.
  • References and sources to document your research.
  • Use illustrations and other visual resources to explain your project.

Some advice

We encourage you to put up a lot of information and content on your wiki, but we also encourage you to include summaries as much as possible. If you think of the sections in your project description as the sections in a publication, you should try to be concise, accurate, and unambiguous in your achievements. Your Project Description should include more information than your project abstract.

References

iGEM teams are encouraged to record references you use during the course of your research. They should be posted somewhere on your wiki so that judges and other visitors can see how you thought about your project and what works inspired you.

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