How the stakeholders helped us to develop
an ethical and responsible project ?
Finding a new way to revalorise green algae can be beneficial for the communities of French Brittany. We want to provide a solution for this local problem.
We ask ourselves: How can we build something effective, responsible and lucrative ? To answer that question, it was essential for us to contact all stakeholders. With the exchanges, we were able to orient the project in the right direction and understand the many stakes of the topic.
Our project was born from an observation: Green tides have been a real scourge for French Brittany for years.
Our approach has been mainly based on exchanges, discussions and interviews, with municipalities, associations, industries and researchers. We first of all decided to contact researchers in order to assess the feasibility of our project, then we drew up a list of people we wanted to talk to. We contacted all the municipalities concerned by the issue, and then we turned to the associations in order to have a different point of view. Because of the current circumstances and the health crisis, some of them could not find time to exchange with us and it was complicated for us to travel and meet these people for a real life interview. We had to limit ourselves to phone calls and video conferences. In addition, we noticed, as we exchanged and documented, new and different stakes, especially socio-political ones, which are leading us towards new avenues for the Human Practices.
Therefore with this strategy oriented on human contact, we were able to design our project A3: Algal Acquired Acid. By clicking on each button of the interactive timeline that follows, you will discover the different stages of our project, the people who influenced it and all the changes made. You will understand how we identified the problem, proposed a solution and designed that solution.
Our design still tends to improve, we continue our documentation and our interviews by exploring new avenues.
Click on each stage and the stakeholders to learn more !
06/05 Pr. Justine Dumay
Associate professor - University of Nantes - Mer, Molécules, Santé (MMS)
We wanted to get her opinion about our idea as she has been working on algae for years. Back then, our project was slightly different.
Our idea was to spray a lysate of transformed E. coli bacteria overexpressing ulvan degrading enzymes, right upon the stranded seaweeds on the coastlines. In this way, we thought, the masses of algae will be wiped out of the beaches, and the ecosystem could breathe again.
However, J. Dumay pointed out some blatant issues in our project : if we plan to degrade the algae on the beach, wouldn’t we end up facilitating the work of H2S-producing bacteria ? And even if this would not have been the case, the product of degradation will just stay at the water surface, eventually nitrating the environment and favoring the growth of new algae. Finally, there was a critical ecological concern about spraying genetically engineered bacteria on the beaches, even if they would be DNA-free. All these probable issues could be dramatic.
Considering these new insights, we had to rethink our project. Thus, we decided to work exclusively in a closed, controlled environment : our lab ! As for our initial goal to clean the beaches of the invasive seaweed, it had to be updated. Thus, we headed our thinking towards the valorization of Ulva spp., and we eventually opted for the production of sulfuric acid, a very useful compound for many industries.
The team wished to provide a way to efficiently degrade Ulva spp. to avoid or limit the formation of the anoxic zones and, thus, H2S emanations. Ulvan, which represents one of the major cell wall constituents (38-54% of the dry weight) is thus a particularly interesting target to accelerate the decomposition of these algae. The team therefore wished to use a chassis adapted to overexpression (E. coli BL21) to secrete at least 3 endoenzymes able to specifically hydrolyze the glycosidic linkages of ulvan (Pl28, Plnc, GH39). The system would have been designed to allow direct spraying of culture media on algae strandings. With E. coli delivered as a
DNA-free cell.
Update to our project : we now aim to valorize ulvan degradation, in a
controlled environment, to produce sulfuric acid.
The abandoned “Fusion” project:
After our discussion with Justine Dumay, we imagined another project.
The second project that our brainstorming gave birth to was aiming at the valorization of the sulfated polysaccharides of the cell wall for the pharmaceutical industry. These sulfated sugars are already being used in the field, as an anticoagulant for instance, but it remains anecdotal. However, many issues were found during the research process. First, seeking information in this highly secretive field is arduous. Then, it would be nearly impossible to get funding while working on GMOs applied to the pharmaceutical industry, especially in France. Those are the main reasons why we finally chose the A3 project.
The A3 project:
We finally came up with the A3 project.
Full Professor - University of Nantes - Mer, Molécules, Santé (MMS)
Our professor J. Fleurence enjoyed our project 2.0 and gave us great insights on regulatory, economic but also scientific aspects.
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Regulatory and economical : working with GMOs in France is not an easy task. Indeed, we need to be careful about the local regulations on the matter. Even if we won’t use our product for nutrition or cosmetics, marketing could be difficult.
- Scientific : he helped us to better understand the algae and gave us precious information about the complex composition of their cell walls, their life cycle and the difficulties that it could bring upon our project. He inspired us with thought-provoking considerations about what could go wrong with our project, in terms of enzymatic activity, which helped us mature our project.
Pr. Fleurence also gave us information about the local labs that were working on algae and that have some expertise on the matter. His enthusiasm for our idea gave us the motivation to keep going on our new project !
Assistant Professor - University of Nantes - Unité Fonctionnalité et Ingénierie des Protéines (UFIP)
Franck Daligault helped us with the technical aspects of our project, more specifically on our detection techniques. Indeed, an important point of our project is product detection. We needed to precisely evaluate our enzyme’s degradation quality and the quantity of H2S produced by the SRBs to optimize our system. We discussed some techniques, as follows :
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Enzyme degradation assay : HPAEC-PAD, ionic chromatography, turbidimetry, enzyme assays, etc.
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H2S detection : photoacoustic spectroscopy and gas chromatography
After our conversation, we were left with a lot of tracks to explore and some research to do.
Full professor - University of Nantes - Institute of Materials Jean Rouxel (IMN)
We contacted Alain Lafond to get some advice and insight into the chemical aspects of our project. Indeed, as we plan to transform H2S into sulfuric acid by chemical conversion, we needed the opinion of an expert to determine which method would work best.
He participated in our brainstorming to find the best detection methods relative to our objectives. Pr. Lafond stated that the conversion of H2S into sulfuric acid would be a fastidious process. He suggested choosing H2S as our final product, as it already has some value in industries as they may have the means to conduct its conversion into sulfuric acid.
Thus, our objective would be redirected to the extraction of H2S from the gaseous mixture that emanates from our tanks. His idea is clever : this way, we could focus on the synthesis of H2S without worrying too much about a complicated chemical transformation. However, as our little discussion came late in the competition, we have kept our goal to produce sulfuric acid… For now ?
Even though we were not able to discuss with the companies we wanted to exchange with because of the health situation, we were nevertheless able to exchange with the Genialg team, which is the first industry-driven project that brings together biorefineries, seaweed cultivation, genetics and metabolomics experts. They aim to improve the seaweed industry. Genialg stimulates the blue biotechnology economy (i.e. marine biotechnology, the exploitation and exploration of marine organisms to create new products). Their theme is in line with our project. It was logical for us to contact them so that they could bring us their expertise. The Genialg project brings together a little less than twenty companies in different fields that can only help us in the design of our project.
Philippe Potin and Kevin Cascella, from Genialg, explained to us that the exploitation of algae, in general, goes back a long way, but green algae have not been the subject of industrial products because their biomass is lower than the exploited brown algae. The utilization of these green algae only started in the ’80s, with the proliferation of these algae and the green tides. Genialg underlines the complication of working with the algae stranded on the beaches because of the collection cost, as it is necessary to clean them and remove the sand.
The interview with Genialg pushed us further towards thinking about the use of cultured algae and to think about a new purpose for our project for next year. Indeed, they pointed out that if we focus only on gas, this will leave almost 98% of the biomass untapped. What can be done with it? Could they also be valorized? Then in terms of yield, it will vary greatly depending on the tides.
In Brittany, several associations are fighting against green tides and trying to raise awareness of their danger to the public. Indeed, these associations work for the protection of the environment and the coastlines of French Brittany. They are against intensive agriculture characterized by the heavy use of fertilizers used to improve agricultural production, and therefore responsible for nitrogen pollution. They are also demonstrating for action to be taken. We have contacted them to discuss their positions on the matter.
It is by exchanging with Annie le Guilloux, the secretary of the association Halte aux marées vertes, that we really understood the socio-political stakes of the project. Indeed, these associations are fighting for responsible agriculture in order to limit the discharge of nitrogen and therefore the proliferation of green algae. As a preventive measure, Inès Léraud, a former journalist, investigated the subject for four years and published a comic book on these green tides. She also received several complaints about this.
The associations question the government's inaction. Nevertheless, with the various programs put in place and awareness-raising, farmers are tending towards more responsible agriculture by reducing nitrate and nitrogen discharges.
Therefore, this exchange made us understand that we had to be more careful in our exchanges with stakeholders and that we should not take sides.
The communities are the first concerned by the green tides in French Brittany because each municipality, with only a few exceptions, manages all the logistics, from collection to storage and treatment.
We have been in contact with Solène Carduner, from Saint-Brieuc Armor Agglomeration, who is in charge of the follow-up and the organization of collection for several communes. We contacted her to understand the pre- and post-collection processes as well as possible. What different actions are taken? What are the prevention actions? And how are these algae valued? How do the communes deal with green tides?
Thanks to this exchange, we learned that urban areas take care of calling the collection and storage companies when deemed necessary. These companies are chosen from their applications for tenders and strive to protect the local environment by carefully picking the algae up without damaging the coastlines. The algae collected on the beaches are then transported to the only processing plant in the region. As the green tides depend on the marsh coefficients, every morning a person will watch/monitor the beaches in order to evaluate the green tides. And then, if necessary, this person makes a report to inform the collection and transport company which will collect the algae within 24 hours. This summer the algae were collected twice a week on average, but it was very varied. For the agglomeration, these operations cost hundreds of thousands of euros - paid by both the State and the municipalities. Only 8% of the collected algae are given to be valorized by the company Olmix for animal feed supplements.
This exchange was very interesting and interviews with other communities are planned for the near future to understand how each one of them is organized.
igemnantes2020@gmail.com