iGEM

2018th iGEM Team Marburg: VIBRIGENS – Accelerating Synbio.

In our project we work with the fastest growing organism known to date, Vibrio natriegens. This organism was described for the first time in 1962 but mostly forgotten in the biology community. In the last few years some scientists proposed V. natriegens as an alternative for the commonly used organism in all aspects of molecular biology, including biotechnological applications, Escherichia coli. Until now most common methods are not available in Vibrio natriegens thus preventing its widespread use. In our work we want to establish and precisely characterise these essential methods and show its power by producing high value chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

We believe that our work will be highly beneficial for the whole community of synthetic biologists as well as for biotech companies.

In contrast to E. coli which relies on the expensive carbohydrate glucose, V. natriegens is able to grow on inexpensive carbon sources such as sucrose. Therefore using V. natriegens does not only reduce the time required for the production it also grows in less expensive media and shows increased production rates.

In addition to biotechnological applications, the fast growth of V. natriegens will be also beneficial for research labs thus cutting down the time and money needed for basic research and the development of pharmaceuticals.