Grenoble’s iGEM 2019 competitors to enter teardrop test for Parkinson’s

Once again this year, a group of students from Grenoble (including four from Phelma) will go to Boston in November to compete in the MIT iGEM international genetically-engineered machine competition. This year’s team is currently putting the finishing touches on NeuroDrop, a system that uses a genetically-modified bacteria to detect a protein called alpha-synuclein, which is a marker for Parkinson’s disease, from a sample of the patient’s tears.

The concept works. The team is struggling to complete the detection chain using aptamers (strands of DNA), but this shouldn’t hurt their chances of winning. NeuroDrop meets all of the requirements for iGEM, including the human practices category, which is being addressed by the team’s two Political Science majors, who are investigating the topic of interdisciplinarity in research.

Also note that the NeuroDrop team will present the project at the Midi MINATEC brown bag lunch talk during the Parvis des Sciences on October 11.

Contact: pierre.bouvet@grenoble-inp.org

Facebook

Twitter