Team:GreenfieldCentral IN

Our second project focuses on the disease in fish called Mycobacterium Marinum. Mycobacterium is a strain of tuberculosis. Mycobacterium Marinum kills large masses of fish, mainly in aquariums, and is currently undetectable. This disease also affects humans; if a human has an open sore and comes in contact with the contaminated water, the human will then be a carrier of mycobacterium Marinum and could possibly infect other aquariums. Our project is to find the structure of Mycobacterium Marinum and have E. coli target mycolic acid, mycobacterium's defense mechanism to current vaccines and antibiotics. When our engineered E. coli detects the mycolic acid on the cell wall of the mycobacterium, the green fluorescent protein gene we will insert into the plasmid will indicate that disease is present in the aquarium. If this step is successful, then we will take the project one step further. We will attempt to engineer E. coli to target an enzyme on the cell wall of Mycobacterium and have it release the mycolic acid so the mycobacterium will become defenseless to current treatments. In the broad view, if we are able to detect Mycobacterium through the use of fluorescent proteins, then the actual test for tuberculosis today could be simplified and made cheaper compared to the current process. A blood sample would be taken from the patient, and exposed to our E. coli. A spectrophotometer would then calculate the fluorescent levels of the sample, and determine if the patient has tuberculosis.

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