A Synthetic Biology Approach to the Design and Construction of a Self-Powered Environmental Pollutions Sensor

In the summer of 2007, the University of Glasgow joined 53 other top universities to compete in the MIT's prestigious International Genetically Engineered Competition (iGEM) in the emerging field of synthetic biology. The Glasgow iGEM team designed and developed a completely novel type of self-powering electrochemical biosensor, called ElectrEcoBlu. Its novelty lies in combining the production of an environmental biosensor for economically important industrial environmental pollutants with a microbial fuel cell which can generate its own electricity. The system can be potentially used for self-powered long-term in situ and online monitoring with an electrical readout, which provides a practically appealing solution of detecting chemical pollution. Our approach exploited a range of state-of-the art modelling techniques to support the design and construction of this novel synthetic biological system and the study of the positive feedback loop variant. This work shows that integrating engineering techniques with scientific methodologies can allow us to gain new insights into genetic regulation and should become the reference framework for the development of biochemical systems in synthetic biology.