Water is a basic need that people in our state of Arizona still struggle to access due to the state’s long history of water scarcity and contamination. The water that is available in these parts, however, is contaminated with arsenic and other heavy metals due to decades-long unregulated mining activity. Arsenic contamination in water threatens the health and well-being of rural Arizonans who rely on these water sources.

Our team has developed an engineered microalgae capable of bioremediating arsenic from contaminated water by improving the heavy metal binding capabilities of the microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii via engineering its nuclear genome. This solution is practical, accessible, and has the potential to revolutionize bioremediation technologies to help Arizona and regions around the world solve the issue of arsenic contamination in water.

Read more here, on our Project Description page.

Our solution is designed to exist within a larger water filtration system to remove all contaminants and provide potable water to rural communities. We’ve designed two versions of water purification systems that are adaptable to the community’s needs.

Engineering the C. reinhardtii nucleus to accept a multicistronic plasmid involves the use of 2A self-cleaving peptides, of which only a handful have been characterized for use in Chlamydomonas. We tested a total of 6 different 2A peptides to determine which had the highest cleaving efficiency, and developed a template plasmid that can accommodate up to three genes of interest using this 2A peptide system for future teams to use.

For more information on this, click here to be redirected to our Proposed Implementation page.

Our team engaged in several conversations with civic, industry, and academic stakeholders in order to gain insight into the deeper context surrounding our project and its aims. The insights we gained from these conversations directly informed the design and scope of our project.

Want to know more about our integrated Human Practice efforts? Click here!

We partnered with UBCO iGEM to carry on the iGEM Phototroph Community started by the Marburg and Bielefeld teams in 2021 to continue giving iGEM teams working with phototrophic chassis a platform to connect and get tailored insights on their projects. We also created Volume II of the Phototroph Community handbook, now including more information on cloning and transformation, detailed protocols, and video tutorials to further assist future teams working with phototrophs.

Click here to see all the teams we collaborated with for the 2022 iGEM competition on our Collaborations page, and/or click here to see our official Partnerships (Including the 2022 iGEM Phototroph Community)