Outreach

As a team, we presented at many of our school events such as schedule pick up day, various club days, and parent-teacher conferences. We had a poster station and actively passed out flyers at these events to spread the word about our team. These events are an effective way to reach an audience that is interested in the work we are doing. These flyers are also a way to raise interest in next year's team so that we can continue the team in future years. We also reach parents this way, and we get to address many of their with the superstitions of genetically modified organisms. These types of open-ended conversation give the public a better understanding of the benefits of using our engineered microbe and synthetic biology in general.

Advanced BioFuels USA

Along with educating students at our high school and local grade schools, we also made an effort to educate the public as a whole about synthetic biology and iGEM. Thanks to Advanced Biofuels USA, we were able to do this by publishing an article on their website. Additionally, we made a music video about synthetic biology and iGEM to further raise public awareness of synthetic biology. We posted this on our social media, and Advanced Biofuels USA also linked to the video on their website.

Advanced Biofuels Article

Music Video on Advanced Biofuels Website

You can also watch the video on our home page.

Input from Industry

Over the summer, the team traveled and spoke with various companies and experts who work with biofuels. One such person is Scott Fenwick, who is the technical director of the National Biodiesel Board. He expressed concerns about having more microbiology in the fuel, and he gave us many big picture ideas about how he believed that the contamination of tanks would be eliminated within about ten years. In light of this concern, we decided to try to use our microbe to prevent biofilms from forming to keep concentrations both of the organisms in the fuel and of our engineered microbe as low as possible. This proposal did allay some of his fears, but he still emphasized his earlier points about adding more microbiology, and he said he would feel better about adding our microbe if there was some control over the growth of the engineered microbe.

The team also visited Beckett, a Cleveland based company that manufactures combustion burners. We spoke with them about how the push for biofuel is causing a number of problems because the current infrastructure is designed to accommodate traditional fuels, not biofuel. Because of this, many pipes, tanks, or other parts that come into contact with fuel will experience a loss in longevity or function when used with biofuels. Changing this infrastructure is one of the hurdles that would have to be overcome to implement biofuels. One of Beckett's main issues was the contamination of B20 or 20% biodiesel that accelerated the aging of many components they use in their burners. Our team discussed our solution with a Beckett representative, and also asked questions concerning what Beckett or any other company would want to see in a solution to biofuel contamination. Within our project, we spoke about trying to prevent microbial growth early on instead of trying to kill the mix of bacteria and fungi that make up the biofilm.

Finally, the team traveled to a refining plant owned by Marathon, a national petroleum manufacturer, in Cincinnati, Ohio to speak about biofuels. The company in recent years has had an interest starting to manufacture biofuels. The team talked to a chemical engineer on site at Marathon about some of the problems the biofuel industry is facing with contamination. Interestingly, the staff at the plant conveyed that all of the contamination that was happening occurred during the transportation and storage of the fuel. This made us consider when our microbe should be implemented, and, after talking to the refining plant staff, we realized our engineered microbe would not need to be added before the refining process.