Team:ASTWS-China/HP/Gold Integrated
Human Practices (Gold Integrated)
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First, based on the results of the survey, we have fully considered the public's apprehension about the impact of geneticCom modification and microorganisms on the natural environment. We chose Escherichia coil BL21 strain which is low toxicity and low sensitivity to human and environment. Besides, we designed a self-suicide part target those abnormal conditions including overpopulation and low copper concentration. This assures the safe management over genetically modified organisms.
Additionally, from our initial idea, the design of our working parts and our prototype to the future applications of our project, the opinions of specialists have been vital in influencing our work. Details as follows.
Prof. Ruo He
Professor from Environmental Science department of Zhejiang University
Our initial plan was to clone the Mbns gene from the methanotrophs. However upon sequencing the amplified inserts, none of the sequences were what we expected to find. And we have learned the methanobactine's mechanism inside methanotroph but is not yet fully understood.
We asked Prof. Ruo He, an expert who mainly worked on methanotrophs, for advice. She told us as an anaerobic bacteria, methanotrophs are really hard to operate in normal conditions. So finding the corresponding sequence and synthesizing it and then transferring the Mbns gene into E.coli would be more efficient and helpful. Combined with the results of survey mentioned above, we chose Escherichia coli BL21 strain which is low toxicity and low sensitivity to human and environment. And we also successfully constructed the new basic part MbnABC which is submitted to Registry (BBa_2826000).
Prof Jiyan Shi
Professor from Environmental Science department of Zhejiang University
Initially, we have a big plan about using biological methods to copper treatment basing on Mbn, but we were lack of recognition of exsiting sewage treatment methods.
We consulted prof. Jiyan Shi, as one of the top researchers in the field of sewage treatment, for advice. He listed the ways heavy metal polluted waters could be treated, which are very efficient and environmental friendly already. However, the regular testing of water quality is not as easy as treating them. Especially for those poor villages in the middle of nowhere. They don't have good access to the testing equipment, and they are among the group of people with lest health care in the nation. So we adjusted our design of proposal, changing from Methanibactine synthesis and real-world application to find a more accessible way to moniter copper pollution (by naked eyes).
Visiting local sewage treatment plant
Other than the interview of both professors, we have also visited a local urban sewage treatment plant, to learn the modern treating methods of sewage by bacteria. This urban sewage treatment plant uses bacteria to process the sewage from Hangzhou, which gives us inspiration in designing our own processor for our product. For example, when designing our prototype, we extra added the use of germicidal lamp and the settling basin to eliminate the public fear of bioengineering methods.
Dr Guanda Lu
Professor from MIT
During the time section of experimenting at Zhejiang University, we are lucky enough to listen to the report of Dr. Lu, a professor from MIT who has extensive experience in the field of synthetic biology, about genetic engineering. We also have asked him for the opinion about our project, such as how does he see the suicide system we designed in our project. Dr. Lu first affirmed our thoughts and pointed out that the design of synthetic biological components must meet the actual needs. Based on his useful advice, we have further improved our project plan, including biosafety of placing the engineered bacteria into environment, further improved the parts design to more closer to actual needs, etc.
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