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| | <div class="title">Copper Ferritin</div> | | <div class="title">Copper Ferritin</div> |
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| − | <br/><h2>RAG</h2> | + | <br/><h2>Short Summary</h2> |
| | <article> | | <article> |
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| − | Searching for a possible source of metal ions we contacted the Ruhrkohle AG (RAG) which is Germany's biggest coal mining corporation.
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| − | The RAG is responsible for taking care of all the coal mines which are either closed already or are closing up in the coming years and who stretch over great areas underneath the state of North Rhine Westphalia and the Saarland.
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| − | One of the major tasks of the RAG is to pump up groundwater which seeps through different layers of rock and floods the coal mines. This water is getting contaminated with heavy metals and becomes a danger for the water supply if it doesn’t get pumped up before it rises up into the groundwater bearing layers. The water has a temperature of around 20°C and gets pumped into nearby rivers without further processing.
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| | <br> | | <br> |
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| | </figure> | | </figure> |
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| − | In our meeting we learned that the levels of copper in the water are much lower than we expected from our own research and do not exceed any legal thresholds at the moment but this might change in the future when government thresholds get more restrictive.
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| − | Other metals like iron where present in levels suitable for our purposes of metal uptake and nanoparticle formation. Equipped with this knowledge and the offer of the RAG to supply us with water samples from iron contaminated sources we decided to dive deeper into the science of iron nanoparticle formation with the goal of developing novel materials with the added benefit of cleaning contaminated water sources found in our area.
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| | <br/><h2>NASA</h2> | | <br/><h2>NASA</h2> |
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| | </figure> | | </figure> |
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| − | We talked with Benjamin about our project idea, possible bottlenecks and how NASA and iGEM work together.
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| − | Thanks to his great insights we learned that the uptake of iron ions in high amounts by bacteria is possible and that printing with iron in space is currently a field NASA is working on. He explained to us, that iron can be used in the construction of conducting structures when used in an air free atmosphere for example on the moon.
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| − | This changed our assumptions on which metals can be used for printing conducting structures and we decided to add iron to the list of metal ions we could use for our printing applications.
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| − | His encouraging remarks about the possibility to import very high amounts of iron ions into cells gave us the confidence to further pursue our work in the direction of iron uptake with the help of modified ferritin. By also focusing on iron uptake we add another important metal to the list of materials which can be found in elevated levels in pit water all over Germany.
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| − | Mr. Lehner also encouraged us to continue our work on copper uptake because to his knowledge 20% of the global copper mined and recycling is already done with the help of bacteria and it’s an essential metal required in many industrial applications.
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| − | He also recommended us to get in contact with Jon Marles-Wright which is an expert in the field of ferritin and its possible applications.
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| | </article> | | </article> |
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