Microdestruction: When Painkillers Hurt

Due to overuse, diclofenac and other pollutants accumulate in wastewater and thus contaminate the environment. The current treatment in sewage plants is expensive and complex. Our vision is to make this process efficient and inexpensive through genetic engineering. We will integrate genes for the enzyme Laccase into the genome of our green algae. This will facilitate the production of these enzyme and secretion into medium (the wastewater from wastewater treatment plants), where they can then break down diclofenac. To ensure an efficient enzyme production, Chlamydomonas will be raised as a permanent culture in a bioreactor. To separate the green algae from the wastewater, we want to create a filter between the bioreactor and the wastewater basin that only allows the enzymes to pass through. The degradation products show no toxicity and therefore do not harm the environment.

During this pandemic, lab work of course is very difficult, however we are striving to organize ourselves to hit the ground running once restrictions start to lift with a comprehensive lab plan once we are able to access facilities again. We are meeting multiple times a week on Zoom and Discord with our group to discuss our progress and plan human practice works like an educational fundraising livestream for later in May. We also want to remind the public of the importance of social distancing and contribute to the fight against COVID-19 by providing masks in return for a 10 euro donation to our project. We also plan to host an online meeting with other groups who are working on waste water treatment to foster collaboration between our iGEM community and hope to participate in the Marburg hosted workshop event in July.

While the logistics have become a bit more complicated than a few months ago, we feel our small team has been made even stronger and more impassioned by the circumstances. We feel very strongly the importance of ridding our waterways of these pollutants, especially with the current pandemic allowing for such a dramatic reprieve from people's affects on this planet, we can see clearer than ever how much we impact this world. Our hope is to contribute to reviving these resources with innovative and cost effective methods that can be realistically implemented in our ever changing world.