Design
Kill Switch for Engineered Bacteria
In 2016, we engineered E.coli to break down nitrogenous waste in Jamaica Bay. In 2017, we designed a light-activated kill switch to prevent our bacteria from surviving in saltwater outside of the waste treatment plant. Within this design we had two versions - one with MazF which causes high cell death, and one with LacZ which allowed us to collect data on expression levels without having to worry about high toxicity.