Gold medal for the iGEM Toulouse team
For the fourth successive year, the iGEM Toulouse 2016 team, composed of students of INSA Toulouse and of Toulouse III University, won
a gold medal at the iGEM(International Genetically Engineered Machine)
international competition in synthetic biology of the MIT and was nominated for its best human approach to the project. The latter concerned the
preservation of the Lascaux cave. Indeed, the invaluable cave paintings it contains are damaged by the action of bacterial and fungal microorganisms which threaten to make this heritage, listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, disappear. The iGEM Toulouse team proposed a new biological approach to fight against these microorganisms. The project consists in taking advantage of
the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, already present in the cave, by engineering the strain so as to improve its predation capacity and to make it capable of releasing antifungals. The aim is to
restore the microbiological balance of the cavein favour of bacteria that are harmless to the paintings.
The project, called Paléotilis, was supported by TWB and partners of its consortium. More information:
http://2016.igem.org/Team:Toulouse_France Contact: Véronique Paquet (paquet@insa-toulouse.fr)
