Welcome to iGEM IIT Kanpur

Our Project

Water is essential to life. Amount of fresh water on earth is limited and its quality is under constant pressure due to our activities. More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is being discharged untreated, which goes on to pollute rivers, lakes and oceans. With about 2 billion people worldwide who don’t even have access to clean drinking water there is growing need for solutions to tackle this global concern.

One of the major chemical wastes discharged in sewage and as industrial effluents are detergents. This year we plan to provide a reliable and robust solution to this problem by focusing on the molecule called SDS(sodium dodecyl sulfate) which is an anionic biodegradable surfactant and is the major component of detergents used around the world.
Our project is concerned with developing a synthetic pathway in E.coli for extracellular expression of enzyme alkyl-sulfatse originally found in bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa to degrade SDS into commercially viable carbon-based by-products like 1-dodecanol.
As part of our project, we will also develop a bio-sensor for easy detection and quantification of SDS and further precisely quantify and characterize the by-products obtained as a result of SDS degradation.