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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/H024425/1
Title: Elements of a Vesicle Machine
Principal Investigator: Ces, Professor O
Other Investigators:
Barter, Dr LMC Templer, Professor R Law, Professor R
Seddon, Professor JM
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
University of Bristol University of Oxford University of Southampton
Department: Chemistry
Organisation: Imperial College London
Scheme: Standard Research
Starts: 01 January 2010 Ends: 31 March 2011 Value (£): 201,409
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Chemical Biology Control Engineering
Synthetic biology
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
11 Sep 2009 Cross-Disciplinary Feasibility Account Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
Despite cells being thought of as the smallest unit of life, they are actually made up smaller components that give them the ability to perform functions such as self-repair, and produce and harness energy. These components consists of large collections of proteins and lipids, the building blocks of cells, that actually work together to create higher level functions. A useful analogy is that of a city and a cell. A city often requires a wall (an outer lipid membrane), power plants (mitochondria from animal cells, and chloroplasts from plant cells) and factories and engineering firms to repair the city infrastructure (lipid homeostatic machinery). Each of these units is run by workers and machinery (lipids and proteins).In this project, we aim to take apart cells, but not at the level of the workers , instead at the level of the city infrastructure and bring them back together in a different combination with a view to constructing a new city (novel self-assembling micron scale machinery). These components, that we will be 'hi-jacking' from cells will be housed within artificial lipid vesicles that will provide a housing which mimics the ability of cells to ring-fence and protect their infrastructure. It is not yet known which components can be coupled in this manner and this is something that we aim to explore.
Key Findings
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Summary
Date Materialised
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Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk