Team:FSU/Implementation
Implementation
This project was designed to be implemented in wastewater treatment plants. The team reached out to an expert in the field of wastewater, Mike Kelley, an owner of multiple plants, with the intent of designing a project suitable for implantation directly into the plant. Despite the original intended users being wastewater treatment plants this project can also be easily implanted into manure treatment in aquaculture and agriculture or feces treatment facilities.
This project was designed to require no maintenance and to be cost free to users. The bacteria can be introduced directly to the contaminated water and from there require no interference. Since this project is self-sustaining, it means it can benefit parties that may not be able to receive additional funds or spare the time and personal to monitor the bacteria. Ideally, this bacteria would be introduced into a wastewater treatment plant or manure treatment and then left alone. This makes it financially easy for the plant to maintain and implement the bacteria since they do not need to make any physical changes which requires paperwork, time and a lot of money.
As with any genetically modified organism, there is the risk of the bacteria being introduced to the environment. This is especially a risk because these bacteria are designed to degrade antibiotics. Should the bacteria escape, it would introduce yet another antibiotic resistant bacteria to the environment. To combat this, a kill switch has been implemented into the bacteria. Should the bacteria be without the presence of methane, it will shift the balance of the toxin antitoxin kill switch in favor of the toxin killing the bacteria. The toxin/antitoxin system will also prevent other bacteria from being able to use the engineered plasmid if they are able to get a hold of it, since it will only work if methane is present in the environment. If not, expressing the plasmid will result in the bacteria’s death. There is also the safety concern of coming into contact with formaldehyde when handling our product due to the presence of the chemical in wastewater. Formaldehyde can cause skin irritation, respiratory problems, and it is fatal if ingested in small amounts. The presence of Methane is also a safety concern since it is a highly flammable chemical.
Without the use of a lab, there is a strong chance multiple parts of our project may not interact well or there may be a compound in the plant that may interfere with the enzymes the bacteria produce. Without a lab, the entire process of trial and error has been removed leaving the team only with past research to a the basis of the project. There may be some safety concerns since our bacteria is producing formaldehyde and methanol as byproducts, although these are likely to be in low concentration, and will likely to degrade, there is no telling for sure since we have not tested it. To make it more realistically applicable in a wastewater treatment plant, the bacteria should target multiple types of antibiotics instead of one, in our project, the bacteria only target macrolides antibiotics which may not be enough to make it worth the investment for the wastewater treatment plant. Making the bacteria produce more enzymes to degrade antibiotics however, can reduce its chance at competing against other bacteria for resources.