Team:Alma/Description
Project Description
To best solve the problems of the 20th century, we will need innovations from this millennium.
St. Louis, Michigan, a town right in our backyard, still suffers from environmental problems that sound like they belong in the 1960s –
contamination of DDT in the soil and the local Pine River. This pesticide is one of the best-known examples of how synthetic chemicals can harm an ecosystem,
threaten human health, and endanger the very existence of important species. Despite recognition of these threats decades ago, the problem persists both here
and globally. Traditional cleanup is difficult and expensive. We propose to address these problems using synthetic biology, restoring the health of our local environment, and of those abroad.
Our immediate focus will be the neighboring town of St. Louis and the Pine River, which flows toward Lake Huron, carrying pollutants to other Michigan communities (especially pronounced during flooding, which are increasingly common). This town was the site of the Velsicol Chemical plant, which is responsible for DDT contamination as well as other persistent organic pollutants. The former site of this facility is Michigan’s largest superfund site, and the EPA has devoted a tremendous amount of time and resources to the cleanup – $100 million has already been spent, with a projected final cost exceeding $350 million. The lingering contamination of DDT in the soil is evident in its effect on the environment: just as Rachel Carlson had predicted in Silent Spring, residents have noted a lack of avian wildlife. Dead birds have replaced the normal vibrant chatter and chirping. Most importantly, the reduction in the biodiversity of birds imbalances the local ecosystem, and potentially exacerbates insect problems. There is some irony in the continued presence of DDT having made it harder to deal with the original target pests.
The threat posed by DDT is not unique to Mid-Michigan wildlife. Despite a ban on the chemical in the US decades ago, other areas of the country continue to deal with pollution of this pesticide or its metabolites in soils, rivers, and other bodies of water. The bioaccumulation and biomagnification of these compounds still threaten endangered species such as the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), the Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi). Recent use of DDT in developing countries poses a threat to an even greater array of species, in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), Black harriers (Circus maurus), and Cape Griffon vultures (Gyps coprotheres). The latter is a particularly troubling prospect, since impoverished communities in those regions will be severely limited in remediation efforts and erratic reporting likely underestimates the true extent of the pollution and challenge to wildlife. Moreover, the endocrine-disrupting effects of DDT seen in some of these species suggests a mechanism for adverse effects on human health.
We propose a project to address DDT pollution through bioremediation – using synthetic biology to make cleanup more economical, safer, and more accessible. We will capitalize on the fact that full or partial metabolic pathways for degrading DDT already exist in nature, scattered among a variety of different microbes such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, Saccharomyces cervisae, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, and Trichoderma viridae. Some of these pathways require specific conditions, and a few create less toxic, but still problematic metabolites. Our best candidate pathway is that of P. chrysosporium, also known as White Rot fungi; this and related species can be used in combination to effectively remediate soil. Our approach is unique in that it uses synthetic biology to merge the required metabolic pathways into a single chassis species -- one that is safe and can treat the problem in a robust way.
We wish to not only to engineer an organism with enhanced metabolic capacity for bioremediation, but to exemplify an approach that is minimally disruptive to the area being treated. For this reason, we will use a fungal or plant species that is native to the St. Louis area for our chassis (or a species as similar as possible). This chassis will be endowed with the necessary metabolic enzymes to degrade DDT to safe by-products, active only in the presence of DDT. Furthermore, this chassis will be rendered sterile outside of the lab environment and when DDT is absent. Additional genetic switches will also be implemented to ensure that the species, although native, can be removed once the pollution has been addressed. Our project aims to revive an ecosystem that has been damaged by problems from the past, while minimizing the risk to the future.
In our first steps toward accomplishing this ambitious goal, we have set our team to work on developing a biosensor utilizing E.coli to produce red fluorescent protein in the presence of DDT. This aim is to produce a bacterium that will allow for detection of where DDT is present, and later on the subsequent measuring and detection of how much DDT has been removed from the location in question. We will be making use of the fact that DDT is an agonist of estrogen in biologic pathways, so it allows for safe testing in the lab setting. Once we have created a working biosensor, we can move forward to making an organism with a metabolic capacity for bioremediation.
In practice in our local community, the biosensor can be used to detect DDT in soil or water samples, and will allow for testing prices to be less than $5 rather than requiring external lab equipment and chemicals. This can be the first steps towards cleaning up our river, cleaning up the superfund site, and can be used anywhere around the country, or world that has an issue with DDT in their environment.
Our immediate focus will be the neighboring town of St. Louis and the Pine River, which flows toward Lake Huron, carrying pollutants to other Michigan communities (especially pronounced during flooding, which are increasingly common). This town was the site of the Velsicol Chemical plant, which is responsible for DDT contamination as well as other persistent organic pollutants. The former site of this facility is Michigan’s largest superfund site, and the EPA has devoted a tremendous amount of time and resources to the cleanup – $100 million has already been spent, with a projected final cost exceeding $350 million. The lingering contamination of DDT in the soil is evident in its effect on the environment: just as Rachel Carlson had predicted in Silent Spring, residents have noted a lack of avian wildlife. Dead birds have replaced the normal vibrant chatter and chirping. Most importantly, the reduction in the biodiversity of birds imbalances the local ecosystem, and potentially exacerbates insect problems. There is some irony in the continued presence of DDT having made it harder to deal with the original target pests.
The threat posed by DDT is not unique to Mid-Michigan wildlife. Despite a ban on the chemical in the US decades ago, other areas of the country continue to deal with pollution of this pesticide or its metabolites in soils, rivers, and other bodies of water. The bioaccumulation and biomagnification of these compounds still threaten endangered species such as the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), the Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi). Recent use of DDT in developing countries poses a threat to an even greater array of species, in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), Black harriers (Circus maurus), and Cape Griffon vultures (Gyps coprotheres). The latter is a particularly troubling prospect, since impoverished communities in those regions will be severely limited in remediation efforts and erratic reporting likely underestimates the true extent of the pollution and challenge to wildlife. Moreover, the endocrine-disrupting effects of DDT seen in some of these species suggests a mechanism for adverse effects on human health.
We propose a project to address DDT pollution through bioremediation – using synthetic biology to make cleanup more economical, safer, and more accessible. We will capitalize on the fact that full or partial metabolic pathways for degrading DDT already exist in nature, scattered among a variety of different microbes such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, Saccharomyces cervisae, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, and Trichoderma viridae. Some of these pathways require specific conditions, and a few create less toxic, but still problematic metabolites. Our best candidate pathway is that of P. chrysosporium, also known as White Rot fungi; this and related species can be used in combination to effectively remediate soil. Our approach is unique in that it uses synthetic biology to merge the required metabolic pathways into a single chassis species -- one that is safe and can treat the problem in a robust way.
We wish to not only to engineer an organism with enhanced metabolic capacity for bioremediation, but to exemplify an approach that is minimally disruptive to the area being treated. For this reason, we will use a fungal or plant species that is native to the St. Louis area for our chassis (or a species as similar as possible). This chassis will be endowed with the necessary metabolic enzymes to degrade DDT to safe by-products, active only in the presence of DDT. Furthermore, this chassis will be rendered sterile outside of the lab environment and when DDT is absent. Additional genetic switches will also be implemented to ensure that the species, although native, can be removed once the pollution has been addressed. Our project aims to revive an ecosystem that has been damaged by problems from the past, while minimizing the risk to the future.
In our first steps toward accomplishing this ambitious goal, we have set our team to work on developing a biosensor utilizing E.coli to produce red fluorescent protein in the presence of DDT. This aim is to produce a bacterium that will allow for detection of where DDT is present, and later on the subsequent measuring and detection of how much DDT has been removed from the location in question. We will be making use of the fact that DDT is an agonist of estrogen in biologic pathways, so it allows for safe testing in the lab setting. Once we have created a working biosensor, we can move forward to making an organism with a metabolic capacity for bioremediation.
In practice in our local community, the biosensor can be used to detect DDT in soil or water samples, and will allow for testing prices to be less than $5 rather than requiring external lab equipment and chemicals. This can be the first steps towards cleaning up our river, cleaning up the superfund site, and can be used anywhere around the country, or world that has an issue with DDT in their environment.