Team:Newcastle/Public Engagement
Alternative Roots
Outreach
OUTREACH
Great Exhibition of the North
On the 12th July, Heather Bottomley (Team member of Newcastle iGEM) presented at ‘The Future of Nature: Engineering living systems with synthetic biology’ talk ran by Ángel Goñi Moreno as part of the Great Exhibition of the North Programme. The presentation was regarding our team’s plan to engineer root colonising microbes for the production of flavonoids that would attract nitrogen fixing bacteria to increase the uptake of nitrogen by the plant. Following this questions were asked by scientific professionals and members of the public regarding its safety, regulation as a GMO, it’s containment in the fields and possible other applications of this technology.
Mechanical Engineering Talk
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All soils have a unique, diverse microbial community
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Within each microbial community there are many microbes with useful abilities
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The bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens lives in plant roots and helps them to grow
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By introducing new genes for our Pseudomonas to express we can influence the microbial community
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We can attract or repel certain species in any way desired
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In our case, we use flavonoids to attract free-living nitrogen fixers, that convert nitrogen gas to nitrate for plant growth
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P. fluorescens has many other abilities, including the ability to repel parasitic nematode worms [1], produce antifungals and insecticides [2] and induce plant stress tolerance [3]