As our project slowly started taking form, we found it
essential to think about how FIAT LUX would be implemented in the real world, taking into
account who the tool would benefit and how, as well as legislation and safety measures. This
page describes FIAT LUX’s implementation in today’s world and encompasses information
found on these pages: Safety and Supporting
Entrepreneurship.
FIAT LUX is a tool that makes any pathogenic bacteria
produce luminescence, allowing us to observe their propagation on a plant in real time, in a
non-intrusive manner. Thanks to software and hardware we developed for the analysis of the
propagation, our tool is a breakthrough in research on phytopathogenic bacteria.
Obviously, the first user is the scientific community. Indeed, our tool
finds its place among both academic researchers and private researchers in the R&D
departments of companies. The final goal is to understand the pathogen’s evolution and
propagation in situ, and to foresee treatments for plant diseases. This will ultimately
lead to new products for agriculture such as new non-harmful chemicals (pesticides, etc.), new
biocontrol tools, and new designs of GMO plants resistant to pathogens, thus benefiting
agroindustries. These new products will directly benefit farmers. In fact, farmers will
see a drop in their crop losses and an increase in the quality of their harvest. In the end,
more and higher quality food will be available on the market for the whole population,
thanks to FIAT LUX.
Figure 1 - End-users analysis
To summarize, our users are (in order): the scientific community, agroindustries,
farmers and the population (Figure 1).
Our team will mainly interact with the first users: research teams in
both academic and private sectors. The research teams will use our tool in its primary use,
which is to track bacteria in situ throughout time. They will receive E.coli MFDpir
transformed with our plasmid pSEVA521 or pSEVA531 containing our biobrick. Those two different
plasmids will allow the client to choose between pSEVA521 or pSEVA531 backbones, two conjugative vectors with RK2 and pBBR origin of replication respectively (low replication strength). Then, they can either
change the plasmid for another one thanks to the restriction sites that delimit our biobrick or
undergo a conjugation, to transfer the plasmid into their bacteria of interest. After that, they can
infect their plant. They will be provided with a kit composed of software and hardware we
designed to analyze the image of infection throughout time (Figure 2).
We thought of expanding our business (see A.
Commercialization and Supporting
Entrepreneurship) by directly commercializing the bacteria of interest, already in a
bioluminescent form. The use for research teams will still be to track their bacteria in situ
throughout time. However, they will just have to infect their plants with the pathogens, so there
will be less work for them.
With our tool, this will allow researchers to study their bacteria of interest in
situ, model their behavior and search for potential treatments, in the case of
phytopathogenic bacteria. They will be able to study their bacteria in a controlled environment (in soil, in water, in isolated and secured field batches, etc). This would help them understand the mechanisms through which pathogens infect plants or if there are some factors that make soil more favorable to a disease, for example. Our tool could also help identify phenotypes predisposed to certain diseases, which could be useful for variety selection. More details about this aspect are presented in the Human Practices page).
Figure 2 - Use of our product by research teams
FIAT LUX can be diverted from its original purpose by other iGEM teams.
Our biobrick can be used as a powerful part of a biosensor or as a reporter system
(Figure 3). The emission of light by our tool is important enough to be detected with only 5 seconds
of exposure with an iPhone 12 (or more recent models). Thanks to that feature, using our biobrick as
a part of a biosensor or a reporter system allows quick and easy checking of the presence of a
substance or of the expression of genes/activity of a promoter. In that way, other iGEM teams could
use our biobrick in their project. The biobrick has been designed according to the iGEM standards
(standard prefix and suffix).
Figure 3 - Scheme explaining how to use our tool FIAT LUX as a reporter
gene
See the awareness manual on the Entrepreneurship page for more details.
With the results obtained thanks to our tool, we will provide farmers with a
guide containing key information about the most widespread pathogens: the objective is to
permit an identification of the plant disease with the visualized symptoms and to approximately
estimate the spread of the pathogen with the results of previous studies conducted with FIAT LUX on
these pathogens. That way, the farmers will be able to treat the crops in a more efficient manner.
The idea is that this guide contains a catalog of all identified and studied pathogens, with all of
their known characteristics. This way, the identification of the disease is made easier, and the
catalog describes all the tips and recommendations FIAT LUX has obtained from previous
studies.
See Supporting Entrepreneurship
for a more in-depth study.
For now, we will sell E.coli MFDpir transformed with the plasmid pSEVA521 or
pSEVA531 containing our biobrick.
However, we thought of expanding our business by directly commercializing
the pathogens already made bioluminescent, thanks to FIAT LUX. In that way, the client will send
us their bacteria or will choose it directly from our bacterial portfolio, and we will do the
conjugation for them, changing the plasmid, if needed. We will do a quality control to attest
that the growth of the bacteria is not affected by our bioluminescent system. An in-depth study
of this idea and future implementation is presented in Supporting
Entrepreneurship.
E.coli MFDpir transformed with our
plasmid is considered as a GMO. Hence, its sale is subject to reglementations. The
authorization procedure for the market launch of a GMO for any purpose other than food is
explained in the Directive 2001/18/CE (Official Journal of the European Communities 2001). A
request for authorization from Anses (“Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation,
de l’environnement et du travail”, National agency of sanitary food, environment and work safety), the competent French authority, is mandatory, because we aim
to first commercialize our product in France, before the European Union and the rest of the
world.
Legislations are also mandatory for our clients. Academic research teams and R&D
teams of companies must follow the Council directive 98/81/CE (Official Journal of the European
Communities 1998) which states the terms and conditions for the contained use of genetically
modified microorganisms.
During all our experimentations, our team filled in a “national
laboratory notebook” (“Réseau CURIE” 2022). Other than its usefulness to follow the progress of
the project, it is also a legal tool. The “national laboratory notebook” allows us to
justify that our team is the inventor of FIAT LUX and proves that we are the owners of
the rights to our research results. In order to protect our innovation, we would soon like to
file a provisional patent application thanks to the INPI process (INPI 2022). This is
interesting for us because it will give us 12 months to file a proper patent while our
innovation is protected. In that way, we can both protect our work, and promote it during the
iGEM contest. This process is quick and cheap, with a cost of 26€. If we decide to expand our
business as described in Supporting
Entrepreneurship, then we will be able to complete the patent to perfectly match our
actual and future research.
See the Safety page for
more details.
Because our product is considered as a non-infectious GMO for human and animal
life, it is classified as “UN 3245 Genetically Modified Micro-organisms” (UCL 2020). Thus, the
packaging for its sending will include leak-proof primary and secondary receptacles, an
absorbent material between those two receptacles, and a rigid outer packaging. The product will
be sent at -80°C to prevent any alteration of it. Thus, dry ice will be placed between the
secondary and the outer packaging. For the safety of the sending, the symbol presented in Figure 4 shall be
placed on the packaging with the description “UN 3245 Dry Ice”. We are currently working on
solutions to send the tool overseas, particularly through customs.
The clients must have safety level laboratories and greenhouses in accordance with
the bacteria they handle. Our product requires Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as lab
coats, glasses and gloves.
Figure 4 - Symbol shown on the package, a
diamond-shaped mark for UN 3245 GMO (From UCL 2020)
One of the biggest challenges for FIAT LUX is to provide a turnkey
tool. Even if our tool is easily adaptable to any bacterial pathogen in theory, the choice of a
specific plasmid for each pathogenic strain requires some R&D work and is an obstacle to the use of
our product. Indeed, each pathogenic strain cannot replicate any type of plasmid. A non-adapted
plasmid will lead to its loss, or to the lack of expression of the FIAT LUX system. Creating
a database which links each pathogen strain to a suitable plasmid is one of the biggest challenges,
but can be done. This can either be an open-source database or be part of our business expansion as
described in Supporting
Entrepreneurship.
For now, we made the proof of concept on Dickeya solani. In the future, we would
like to do so on fungi and yeast, in order to cover a bigger spectrum of pathogens, adapting
the tool to its host. This challenge involves a lot of R&D we planned in Supporting
Entrepreneurship.
Finally, our tool was made for pathogens that can grow under lab conditions.
Finding a way to adapt our tool for pathogens that we are not in capacity to grow in labs will be a
big improvement for our project.
Official Journal of the European Communities. « DIRECTIVE 2001/18/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 12 March 2001 », 2001. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:02001L0018-20180329&from=FR.
Official Journal of the European Communities. « COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 98/81/EC of 26 October 1998 amending Directive 90/219/EEC on the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms », december 5th 1998. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:31998L0081&from=EN.
Réseau CURIE. « Cahier de laboratoire national - RESEAU C.U.R.I.E. ». Consulted in 2022. https://www.curie.asso.fr/-Cahier-de-laboratoire-national-.html
INPI. « The patent | INPI.fr ». Consulted in 2022. https://www.inpi.fr/en/comprendre-la-propriete-intellectuelle/le-brevet
UCL. « Transporting Infectious and Biological Material ». Safety Services, august 3rd 2020. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/safety-services/policies/2020/aug/transporting-infectious-and-biological-material
↑