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Revision as of 13:35, 29 June 2018

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BactMan

A probiotic bacterial BATMAN to protect the citizens of Gotham from Arsenic Poisoning.

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BactMan

Though several remediation and decontamination techniques exist to remove Arsenic form water, yet Arsenic poisoning remains a severe ailment in highly affected regions such as West Bengal, India (the province of our Institute) and Bangladesh.

These cases of Arsenic toxicity arise due to heavy intake of the metal through food (rice, other cereals and vegetables) raised in Arsenic laden soil and water paddy. There are no preventive measures to these 'vectors' of the 'disease'.

We, Team IISER-Kolkata plan to design a probiotic bacteria that can efficiently intake and sequester Arsenic in the physicochemical conditions existing in the human gut.

Therefore, it will enable us to shield people highly sensitive to Arsenic from its poisoning using low cost but effective result yielding probiotic pill prescription.

We aim to show the proof of concept of our project in Escherichia coli and later move on to probiotic strains such as Lactobacillus acidophilus.

We also plan to design safe techniques to deliver the probiotic pill into the gastrointestinal tract where the bateria will compete with GI tract epithelium for Arsenic absorption.

Description:

Starting with analyzing and surveying of severe challanges in our locality but also of global concern, we came across the issue of Arsenic contamination of groundwater as the project problem. We are in the process of performing ground surveys, social awareness visits and interviews of experts to obtain meaningful data on this problem.
However, upon preliminary examination it has come to our notice that though water filtration and decontamination plants exist to remove Arsenic from potable water, yet use of untreated water for irrigation of food crops (rice) and/or raising fishes etc. leads to inclusion of the heavy metal into the staple diet of the locals. Arsenic ingestion through food causes severe poisoning and several long term effects even leading to cancer.

Present purification methods do not cover this side of the problem leaving people open to the risk of Arsenic toxicity. Team iGEM 2018 IISER Kolkata therefore plans to put synthetic biology to use to combat Arsenic toxicity mainly caused by heavy metal laden ingested food.
Our aim is to design a probiotic Arsenic sequestering bacteria which will be administered as an inexpensive pill to colonize gut and eliminate the toxic heavy metal entering through diet (mostly food).
We will first test the idea and establish proof of concept in the easy to work with gram negative E. coli species often called the lab rat of molecular biology and only then move on to working with gram positive Lactobacillus (probiotic species).

Significance:

1. Novel prevention based approach as a long term solution to Arsenic Poisoning in severely affected regions of the world.
2. The problem is severe and relatively undealt with. It is of particular importance in the province of our Institute (West Bengal, India), but is also present in other parts of the globe.
3. Our approach is innovative, cheap and effective.

Dr. Partho Sarothi Ray

Primary PI



Dr. Arnab Gupta

Secondary PI



Mr. Debabrato Sutradhar

Project Instructor

Paresh Priyadarshan Rana
The Team Leader


Animish Nilesh Vaze
The Skeptical Experimentalist


Diptatanu Das
The Skilled Microbiologist


Pallab Datta
The Intelligent Artist


Anmol Kumar
The Cheerful Professionalist


Ankit Amrutkar
The Righteous Physicist


Hrishika Rai
The Starved Biologist


Madhavi Andhari
The Confused Hardworker


Souvik Ghosh
The Drunk Craftsman


Prajwal Padmanabha



Pavan Vynatheya



Rajalaxmi Saha
The Ghost