The European Union regulation has specified the acceptable limit of 0.8 mg/kg of cadmium (Cd) in cacao products because of the toxic and carcinogenic effects of cadmium, and this has impacted the Peruvian cacao industry. Only 5% of Peruvian cacao exporters actually meet these requirements, and for this reason, almost 50,000 cacao farmers are reporting income loss. In collaboration with Alianza Cacao, our team is currently developing a Cd detection system to be implemented in order to provide on-site detection of areas with high amounts of cadmium in the soil. We are working to develop a plasmid construct with a MerR protein that blocks the promoter region of the RFP gene. This MerR protein can be inhibited in the presence of cadmium, and therefore the amount of cadmium in the soil can be relatively determined by the amount of RFP protein produced. After we identify the regions contaminated by Cadmium, our future goal with this project is to bioremediate the soil using genetically modified rhizobacteria and hyperaccumulating plants. This would remediate cadmium from the soil, ultimately fulfilling our goal of reducing the contamination of the cacao beans.
The FDR-HB iGEM team is a two phased team in its second year of being a two phased team.