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Welcome to the wiki of IGEM CIDEB

http://imgur.com/a/DZqmj#0The detection of various components in a safe and rapid way has been a challenge in modern science. Biosensors using genetic circuits in bacteria have been made, which allow knowing whether the sensed component is present or not. Nowadays it is known that certain levels of heavy metals on water can be dangerous for living organisms. For that reason it is important to know the concentration of these metals, but the techniques for detection and quantification are complex and require expensive equipment.

The aim of this project is to make a study model for quantifying heavy metals with fluorescent colors depending on their levels of concentration. In order to do so, a biosensor based on three different fluorescent reporters will be built. Additionally, this design could be improved in order to achieve higher sensitivity by adding more modules to the circuit.

This genetic circuit could be applied for building biosensors to detect the presence of heavy metals and semi-quantify them. This design will recognize the component that it is meant to be analyzed and give an approximation of the quantity. According to that, it can be useful to know if the concentration is toxic for living organisms.

Back in the early nineties (yeah, i'm old) i was tripping ballz on acid one night with some friends. At some point one of us got the brilliant idea to test out our clairvoyant abilities under the influence and we set up a nifty experiment where one of us would take a random card out of a playing deck and would try to 'send' the card telepathically to one of the others. When me and my best friend at the time were up, I ended up calling the exact card three times in a row. Pretty much left the room speechless. The weird thing is, when we talked about it later on we both sort of knew beforehand we could do this and couldn't stop smiling during the whole ordeal.