Team:Baltimore BioCrew/Results

2020 Baltimore Biocrew
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Results Overview

Bronze Medal Criteria

Link to page Summary of how we fulfilled the criteria
Project Description

The Baltimore BioCrew was inspired to design a project to increase growth of phytoplankton to stabilize the food supply for the marine food chain and absorb CO2 from the atmosphere to reduce climate change. Out of the many organisms that are phytoplankton, we chose a strain of cyanobacteria (Synechococcus CB0101) and decided to make it better at growing in environments with low iron.

Attributions

To tackle all the parts of our project, our team of high school students worked in many small groups. We had three groups who planned experiments that involved being in our lab and five groups who were responsible for tasks that could be done outside of the lab.

Contribution

Our first wet lab groups characterized the growth of our strain of cyanobacteria under varying iron concentrations and contributed validation of an inexpensive measurement technique that we had not seen used by any other iGEM teams.

Silver Medal Criteria

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Engineering Success

Our second wet lab group identified seven genes involved in iron-related cellular processes from strains of cyanobacteria that evolved in low iron environments. The team optimized these genes for expression in Synechococcus CB0101 to engineer a single strain of cyanobacteria to be super efficient at using iron (BBa_K3651030, BBa_K3651011, BBa_K3651012, BBa_K3651032, BBa_K3651014, BBa_K3651015, BBa_K3651033).

Collaborations

The collaboration team coordinated with multiple iGEM teams to create peer-reviewed proceedings for iGEM 2020, design a class to raise awareness about human impact on aquatic ecosystems, and record a podcast to communicate our project to the public.

Human Practices

The human practices team arranged interviews with many experts including a research student who studies iron cycling in the ocean, a local professor whose expertise is adaptations of marine organisms, an environmental policy advisor who protects watersheds at the state level, a scholar in environmental ethics who has negotiated climate change issues with the United Nations, and a fisherman who livelihood is impacted by climate and marine ecosystems.

Proposed Implementation

The human practices team considered how our project could be implemented in the real world. They identified communities who would be interested in increasing phytoplankton populations such as scientists who want to address climate change by increasing photosynthesizing organisms which consume carbon dioxide. They considered the ethical challenges and restrictions when releasing engineered organisms. They identified ways to avoid negative environmental impacts such as growing engineered phytoplankton on farms instead of releasing into marine environment and also working with the state Department of Environment to have the appropriate permits and certification.

Gold Medal Criteria

Link to page Summary of how we fulfilled the criteria
Improvement of an Existing Part

Our third wet lab group addressed the question of how to keep our engineered cyanobacteria from growing too much and causing algae blooms. They set out to improve the sensitivity of iron-sensing promoters. If these promoters were used upstream of genes that promote cell death, then the cyanobacteria population would stop increasing once the iron concentration needed to activate the promoter is reached. The groups designed a set of iron-sensing promoters with additional repeats of the FUR box (BBa_K3651020, BBa_K3651021, BBa_K3651023, BBa_K3651024) which improved upon promoters from the 2018 ECUST iGEM team (BBa_K2737003, BBa_K2737004, and BBa_K2737005).

Integrated Human Practices

The interviews with experts and stakeholders help shape our project design and science communication initiatives. Discussions with scientists helped us identify which phytoplankton we should attempt to modify and gave us an understanding of how phytoplankton use iron so we could identify which genes to utilize. Also talking with scientists, policymakers, and stakeholders about the science and impact of climate change encouraged us to educate people about climate and marine environments through social media and a class.

Math Modeling

The math modeling team used the Monod Model for substrate-limited cell growth to model the growth of cyanobacteria as iron concentration changes. They optimized the parameters in the model using data from the literature. This team analyzed their optimization results to improve upon the design of their experiment to measure cyanobacteria growth at their homes. They plan to use this model to compare the kinetic parameters of our engineered cyanobacteria and identify which genes increase growth best.

Proof Of Concept

In order to justify the basis for our project, one of our wet lab teams tracked the growth of cyanobacteria in various concentrations of iron. They observed that as the concentration of Fe(II) increases in the media there is an increased growth of Synechococcus CB0101. The results provide proof of concept for the whole project because they demonstrate that our decision to engineer a Synechococcus strain with increased access to iron will likely increase the growth of the cyanobacteria.

Science Communication

Through social media, the human practices team communicated to the public about synthetic biology, phytoplankton, and climate change by posting a series of stories that included polls and questions that increased engagement with our accounts. This team also developed a class on oceans, phytoplankton, and climate change, which we taught to middle school students.