After we thought about our project we wanted to know if it could be
established or more specifically if it is an idea that is profitable
.
To be on the safe side with our project, we contacted many experts
and explained them our intention. We contacted not only allergists
to check if our test strip, that will identify the different pollen in the
air, can help to measure out the medicine,
but also scientists
who are specialized in palynology ( scientific field of pollen)
and
the German fruit juice industry, because our
Escherichia coli
will
produce pectinase, which is often used by the industry for
breaking the cells of fruits
in order to gain as much juice as
possible.
Another part of our Human Practice was to visit the Marta Event in Herford, Germany. Here you can see more of it at the
Marta Event.
Another part of our Human Practice was contacting some allergists to
figure out the negative impact and side effects of antihistamines
which
are tiring but the allergy itself lowers the capability of the affected
persons
. Therefore
we approached Stefani
Röseler who works at the
university hospital of Aachen in the otorhinolaryngology and allergology.
She told us about a study at a British school
.
The result
of the study was
that
during the seasons where a lot of pollen
are
in the air and the
students take anti allergenics, their grades differ negatively up to a
whole grade
(
Walker, S., Khan-Wasti, S., Fletscher, M., Cullinan, P., Harris,
J., Sheikh, A.: “Seasonal allergic rhinitis is associated with a detrimental
effect on examination performance in United Kingdom teenagers: Case
control study”, in Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 2007: 120,
2: 381-387
).
So, the capability
of the students performance
suffers from
the medicine
and another
side effect is fatigue
.
Jereon Buters, a professor at the technical university of Munich showed
real interest in our
general
project.
After the Giant Jamboree we want to
stay in contact with him and he wants to support our project in future
researches.
Another thing we had to think about was the negative side of developing
a biosensor. If the biosensor debuts, the centre for pollen
in the technical
university of Munich
which counted the pollen before would lose their
purpose and it could cause a loss of jobs
because the pollen were counted
by hand with a microscope.
Asking the fruit juice industry
We communicated with the executive secretary of the German
association for the fruit juice industry („Verband der deutschen
Fruchtsaft-Industrie“), Klaus Heitlinger.
He told us that the fruit juice industry uses pectinase for clearing
the juice, which is an important step for clear apple juice. If our
E.
coli
could produce the pectinases, it could be used in the fruit juice
industry because the amount of pectinase
the industry needs is
„quantum satis“ (limitless).
If there is a chance for the fruit juice industry to use the
E. coli
it
needs to be approved for the food production by the European
Union
that tests the E.coli if it is detrimental to ones health and if it
can be used by the industry.
So this could be another way to use our
E. coli
and to research in
the future.
Results of Human Practice
To conclude our Human Practice we found out that there is a general interest in our idea and that not only the medicine but also the fruit juice industry could make profit out of our project.
