2007 Winning proposals:
Escherichia coli Based Red Blood Cell Substitutes: Cheap, High Volume, and Totally Awesome: The global demand and importance for cheap, available, and disease free blood substitutes is undisputed. There are currently no red blood cell substitutes approved for clinical use in the US or the UK and whole blood is almost always in short supply. Underdeveloped countries that need blood the most simply don’t have the infrastructure to support donation and storage, in addition to a sizeable fraction of the population are disease carriers. By presenting this problem to synthetic biologists, one must expect the initial “knee jerk” response of throwing bacteria at it. In this case, however, using an E. colo chassis as an artificial red blood cell (RBC) membrane that encapsulates E. coli produced functional adult hemoglobin may not be such a bad idea. This usage of the entire bacterium as the artificial RBC allows for cheap, high volume, disease free production of a potential RBC substitute.
Self-Regulating Bacterial Network (ESRBN): Synthetically engineered populations of bacteria currently show promise towards solving challenging problems in the fields of medicine, agriculture, and energy. However, bacterial population proliferation is currently uncontrolled and inefficient, and therefore lacks widespread applicability. By creating the ESRBN, the resulting bacterial populations not only control their growth based on density and extracellular cues, but also modify their external environment to match a set of desired parameters. This self-regulating mechanism provides a controlled framework for symbiotic and non-invasive applications, while adding to the efficiency and applicability of existing synthetic bacterial technology.