Team:Buenos Aires/ objectives

The project is focus on the development of a specific water contaminants biosensor with a modular and scalable approach. Thereby, it could be easy to adapt the response to different substances detection. Until now there have been some experiences of contaminants biosensing in iGEM projects but most of them rely on expensive and specific equipment or qualified people to interpret the results. Being aware that most of the population affected by consumption of contaminated groundwater lives in countryside or developing countries, we aim the device to be cheep and easily distributed. We also have designed it in a way that any user with minimal training (using an image-based Instruction) could easily and quickly determine the presence and level of the contaminant on consumption water. The project will focus on the measurement of a primary pollutant: arsenic. However, its modular and scalable design provides an easy way to measure various contaminants such as nitrate/nitrite, lead, hydrocarbons, etcetera. At the end of this project we expect to have a prototype of the measurement device and a diagram of a system for the distribution, collection and centralization of data.