Team:Copenhagen

The problem

In recent years the contamination of wastewater by PPCP’s (Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Products) as pollutants has received quite the media attention. The most prominent stories involve the presence of estrogen (a PPCP pollutant) in waterways and their possible involvement intersex traits among fish [1]. On-going research in Denmark is mostly concerned with measuring the levels of PPCP in order to determine if they are above the risk thresholds, and several studies that have shown high levels of certain PPCP pollutants in the waterways have already been published [2,3,4]. It is on the basis of these studies that our project lies.

The solution

Our aim is to create a biological system that is able to remove PPCP pollutants from wastewater which is a risk to the environment. Due to our limited time range we will focus on two, possible three PPCP products, all of which have been found to occur in dangerous levels in Danish waterways. Our main focus will be to impede all estrogenic activity [2] and to reduce the concentration of the psychoactive pharmaceutical drug, carbamazepine, which is poorly removed by wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) [3]. If we have time we hope to address our bacteria’s ability to remove beta blockers, which in a recent study has been found in quite high levels in the hospitals own WWTP [4]. Estrogenic activity arises primarily due to natural estrogenic steroid hormones and to a lesser degree due to industrial manufactured hormones called xenoestrogens. The effect is due to incomplete conversion of the estrogens to products without estrogen activity. This conversion occurs in the human liver, and the major enzyme involved in the process of inducing estrogen inactivity is the cytochrome p450 family (CYP). Our plan is investigate the following isoforms in a biological system; human CYP 3A4 and CYP 1A1. These isoforms have been chosen because of their individual specificity for estrogen as described. [5] We intend to use fact that the cytochrome p450’s are promiscuous enzymes which are involved in nearly all of human drug metabolism, to improve the cleaning of water in WWTP.