William & Mary Bioengineering Lab
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W&M iGEM 2017
2017 iGEM ProjectThe 2017 project focused on building and characterizing tools to fundamentally change the speed of genetic circuits. The team accomplished this by changing the rate of protein degradation.
Based on multiple well-cited claims in literature, a strong relationship can be asserted between gene expression speed and the rate of protein degradation. Using a basic mathematical model of gene expression, one can derive that the speed of gene expression, defined as the time it takes for its protein product to reach half of its steady-state concentration, is a function of the protein’s degradation rate. This reveals that tuning protein degradation rate is essential to controlling gene expression, thus amenable to an approach involving protein degradation tags. Different degradation tags have unique protease-binding affinities which confer various degradation rates on the tagged proteins. Learn more about the project here. |
Awards and Recognitions
First Runner-Up