Team:Shanghai city/Implementation
Implementation
Atrazine is an agricultural herbicide that is widely used in farms to control broadleaf weeds and grasses that interfere with the growth of crops. It is also being used as a weed killer on golf courses as well as a variety of commercial and residential lawns.
It is reported many diseases such as prostate cancer, decreased sperm count in men, a higher risk of breast cancer in women, declines of endangered amphibians, and many other endangered species, are related with pollution caused by too much use of Atrazine.
So, our project intention is to design a kit that can detect if the solid or water is polluted by Atrazine. The kit should be simple and convenient for people to use but sensitive to Atrazine or its degradations. Considering the advantage of synthesis biology, we made the kit that is composited of a kind of Pseudomonas putida co-transformed with plasmid pME6032-AtzR and plasmid pBBR1MCS2-PatzD-GFP-T7 terminator, of which GFP is a reporter gene. When contaminated samples are added into the kit, we can see green light emitted by GFP with naked eyes. Our proposed end users of this kit should be farms and peasants. After achieving convincing research progress in the lab(further research should be done to verify our proposed kit's functions and stability under the guidance of our project instructors and other professional researchers), we need to To reach these potential consuemrs, we need to make detailed commercialization plan ranging from promotions, personalized trial experiences and specific safety and work mannual design.
We should also pay attention to potential safety hazards, since Pseudomonas putida is a type of gram-negative bacterium that is commonly found in water and soil. There are a few cases of their having caused disease in people with compromised immune systems. So, we should ensure the packaging of the kit is well sealed and the waste materials should be sorted before being discarded.
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