Team:Baltimore BioCrew/Implementation
Implementation
Relevance
Who are your proposed end users?
The project appeals the most to people interested in addressing climate change and to the
fishing community. If our improved phytoplankton were approved for implementation into water,
the phytoplankton population would greatly increase. Phytoplankton both serve as significant
sources of atmospheric oxygen and feed marine life as primary producers on the food chain.
The increase of phytoplankton population would be of interest to environmentalists who want to
increase the amount of photosynthesizing plants, and phytoplankton may be a better option
than trees because they are less likely to be removed for commercial expansion or profit.
The fishing community would also benefit from our project and an increase in the marine life
population because the new phytoplankton provide a larger food source fish can prey on. From
our interview with James Johnson, a fisherman from the oldest fisherman union in Seattle, we
learned that our project is very important to him and his union since it impacts their livelihood.
Under our hypothesis, since our modified phytoplankton is capable of consuming high levels of
CO2, the marine environment would become much more ideal and suitable for organisms to
live. Thus, populations of marine life would increase, and fishermen would benefit from this. He
stressed the importance of scientists generating information that’d support union and advocates’
arguments fighting for environmental benefits rather than economic benefits. We believe that all
communities, especially those living near and relying on major bodies of water that are lacking
in usable iron, would use our project, even if it isn’t a direct usage.
How do you envision others using your project?
One way people could use our project is getting educated about climate change and the impacts of climate change. Our project is striving to reverse an effect: depleting the phytoplankton population, so people can get a sense of what more we need to do as a society to prevent this from happening. We hope that our project would unleash a spark in other scientists to pick up our method to ethically implement this into the world.
Applications
How would you implement your project in the real world?
The project can be used for research applications. Over the course of this project we’ve learned that the more phytoplankton, the lower the earth's temperature will become due their consumption of carbon dioxide. The less carbon dioxide, the less heat it can trap.This direct connection to reducing atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide concentration would be researched as a stepping stone to combating climate change.
The project can be used to grow phytoplankton for phytoplankton farming. Phytoplankton play a vital role in the environment because they’re so rich in nutrients. Our project allows for phytoplankton to grow faster and stronger in iron-limited areas. Globally, phytoplankton are used for food by people as a culinary delicacy. It’d be logical to want to grow your own food effectively and efficiently, rather than catching it. Phytoplankton have a 6 month shelf life and are high in nutrition. This means that it could feed people in 3rd world countries or just add energy to the average person’s day. Our project would mean that you could grow phytoplankton without having to feed them a lot of iron, which would reduce the expense and complexity of growing them.
From our interview with James Johnson, a fisherman from the oldest fisherman union in Seattle, we learned that our project is very important to him and his union since it impacts their livelihood. Since our modified phytoplankton is capable of consuming high levels of CO2, the marine environment would become much more ideal and suitable for organisms to live. Thus, populations of marine life would increase, and fishermen would benefit from this. He stressed the importance of scientists generating information that’d support union and advocates’ arguments fighting for environmental benefits rather than economic benefits.
From our interview with Jim George, a Water and Science Administration policy advisor at the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE), we know that if we were to release this in Maryland waters, we would need to acquire a permit from the MDE before releasing it into the water. Also from George, we learned this would require us to test and prove our products effectiveness in a state-certified lab.
Ethics and Safety
What are the safety aspects you would need to consider?
Iron concentration: this is essential for phytoplankton growth, too much could lead to less sunlight reaching deeper parts of the bay and organisms that reside there. This could potentially have a disastrous effects on the marine environment, given that most aquatic plants grow in these areas, and many bottom feeders rely on them as a nutrient source and habitat. The effects of this decline in the growth of these populations could be felt all throughout the food chain and disrupt the stability of the environment. It would be extremely difficult to reverse because of how deep rooted these changes can be. This is again why the kill switch that we are implementing is so important. We are improving previous iron sensitive promoters to make them sensitive to lower iron concentrations so that we can specifically regulate at what iron concentrations our phytoplankton will grow and at what iron concentrations our phytoplankton will die so that they don't overgrow the environment.
What other challenges would you need to consider?
We must consider the ethical challenges and restrictions when implementing a new synthetic biological organism into the real world. This synthetically altered phytoplankton could negatively impact its surrounding environment and other organisms in unforeseen ways. From our interview with Jim George, a Water and Science Administration policy advisor at the Maryland Department of Environment, we know that if the phytoplankton we release is harmful to the environment, lawsuits can be made against us in court under the Tort Law. To avoid unforeseen problems and conflict with policymakers, we’d perform several years of pilot projects in a small area to test if there are any downsides. Additionally, we’d model ecosystems that have species and food chain relationships to see what is disrupted by genetically engineered phytoplankton. There are long-term factors that have to be considered, such as how the phytoplankton would interact with its surroundings over a prolonged period of time. To avoid challenges pertaining to credibility and certification, we’d get a state certified lab to prove the project’s findings are true. This also ensures that the government takes our project into serious consideration.