Team:Gaston Day School

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!align="center"|[[Team:Gaston_Day_School|Home]]
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!align="center"|[https://igem.org/Team.cgi?year=2013&team_name=Gaston_Day_School Official Team Profile]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Gaston_Day_School/Project|Project]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Gaston_Day_School/Parts|Parts Submitted to the Registry]]
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<h1><center>Detection of Heavy Metal Contaminants in Water</h1><br>
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|A recent WHO and UNICEF report estimates that as of 2010, almost a billion people around the world lack access to contaminant free, safe drinking water (WHO & UNICEF, 2012). This poses a significant health risk to individuals and especially children. The United Nations approximates that 3 million people, in developing countries alone, die each year from water related illnesses (UNESCO, 2009). In the United States, water quality is strictly monitored by government agencies. But in many places a lack of regulation combined with poor irrigation leads to a hazardous situation. In 2012, the Gaston Day School iGEM team created biological heavy metal detectors. However, they were not sensitive enough to be a practical application of the BioBricks.  
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|Despite improvements in water quality, contaminants still interfere with farming in many of the world’s biomes. For 2013 the Gaston Day School iGEM team’s project is to help solve this problem by using the existing registry of parts to create new heavy metal detectors. We have shifted our project from last year’s cadmium, arsenic, and lead detectors in order to focus on cadmium contaminants in water. This metal is known to be used in insecticides, fungicides, and fertilizers and is also a byproduct of industrial processes such as smelting. If ingested it can cause numerous health problems including cancer and pulmonary edema. To detect this metal, we constructed the sensor by using a cadmium sensitive promoter and an activator which are upstream from a stronger promoter. This should help amplify the original cadmium promoter's signal. Then we combined it with a GFP reporter to create the new part. GFP was used because our spectrophotometer can accurately measure it.  
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Once the part was created, it was tested for accuracy and sensitivity. Many farmers need a way to measure the amount of cadmium in water to determine whether the levels are dangerous; therefore, the improved cadmium detector must be sensitive enough to detect cadmium at or below the federal limits in water to be effective. As the project continues, we plan to test the safety of the engineered bacteria and create survivorship curves as they are released into different environments, similar to last year’s testing. Once this detector is functional, a final kit could be developed that include the heavy metal detectors and all components necessary to run, accurately measure, and safely dispose of the tests. This kit would help agricultural and environmental fields make improvements in safety.
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At the 2011 competition, the UC-Davis team presented a novel protocol for Mutagenic PCR. We are using this procedure
 
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to alter the sensitivity of our detectors by mutagenizing both the Cadmium Sensitive Promoter (K174015) and our Cadmium Detector Construct (K824008). In addition to the mutagenic promoter, we will incorporate sensitivity tuners created by the 2009 Cambridge iGEM team in an attempt to decrease the detection threshold.
 
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1. WHO, & UNICEF, (2012). Progress on drinking water and sanitation. Retrieved from UNICEF Division of Communication 
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'''Links to More Info:'''
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:: website: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2012/9789280646320_eng_full_text.pdf
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*http://www.lef.org/protocols/health_concerns/heavy_metal_toxicity_01.htm
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2. UNESCO. (2009). Water in a changing world. Retrieved from UNESCO Publishing website:
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*http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/confronting-toxics/heavy-metals/
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*http://www.water.ncsu.edu/watershedss/info/hmetals.html
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:: http://webworld.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/wwdr3/pdf/WWDR3_Water_in_a_Changing_World.pdf
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*http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/
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*http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/spl/
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Latest revision as of 20:25, 27 September 2013


Detection of Heavy Metal Contaminants in Water


Despite improvements in water quality, contaminants still interfere with farming in many of the world’s biomes. For 2013 the Gaston Day School iGEM team’s project is to help solve this problem by using the existing registry of parts to create new heavy metal detectors. We have shifted our project from last year’s cadmium, arsenic, and lead detectors in order to focus on cadmium contaminants in water. This metal is known to be used in insecticides, fungicides, and fertilizers and is also a byproduct of industrial processes such as smelting. If ingested it can cause numerous health problems including cancer and pulmonary edema. To detect this metal, we constructed the sensor by using a cadmium sensitive promoter and an activator which are upstream from a stronger promoter. This should help amplify the original cadmium promoter's signal. Then we combined it with a GFP reporter to create the new part. GFP was used because our spectrophotometer can accurately measure it.

Once the part was created, it was tested for accuracy and sensitivity. Many farmers need a way to measure the amount of cadmium in water to determine whether the levels are dangerous; therefore, the improved cadmium detector must be sensitive enough to detect cadmium at or below the federal limits in water to be effective. As the project continues, we plan to test the safety of the engineered bacteria and create survivorship curves as they are released into different environments, similar to last year’s testing. Once this detector is functional, a final kit could be developed that include the heavy metal detectors and all components necessary to run, accurately measure, and safely dispose of the tests. This kit would help agricultural and environmental fields make improvements in safety.




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Links to More Info:

  • http://www.lef.org/protocols/health_concerns/heavy_metal_toxicity_01.htm
  • http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/confronting-toxics/heavy-metals/
  • http://www.water.ncsu.edu/watershedss/info/hmetals.html
  • http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/
  • http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/spl/