Achievements
aGEM Winner - held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Regional Finalist at the American Regional Jamboree - held in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.
Project Description
Managing byproducts of the extraction and refinement processes is a common problem in harvesting natural resources, such as oil. In most cases, tailings ponds are used for storing the toxic water byproducts, which not only have severe negative environmental impacts but also by using current methods can take decades before they can be reclaimed. The current remediation methods need to be improved to provide economical, effective and efficient processes to decrease the negative environmental impact of the tailings ponds. The tailings ponds contain toxic organic compounds, heavy metals and fine clay particles, all which require improved methods of treatment. We will produce a tailings pond clean up kit that uses environmentally safe methods to accelerate the decontamination of toxic organic molecules, heavy metals, and settle the fine clay particles at an increased rate. Toxic compounds will be degraded into metabolizable compounds at increased rates by using proteins that act within a common degradation pathway co localized within a microcompartment in the form of an easily distributed dry powder. Removal of heavy metals, such as iron, from samples of tailings ponds water will be achieved by inducing the formation of iron nanoparticles, which can be removed together with the generated biomass. The rapid formation of fine clay sediments will be facilitated by the use of bacteria cell aggregates, increasing sedimentation rates from many decades to days or even hours. The kit will consist of either cell- free components or genetically modified organisms (GMO) that pose no threat to the environment as they will have been programmed with a method of rendering the cell inert and destroying its DNA once the desired action is completed. The methods within the tailings pond clean up kit will be applicable for large-scale treatment facilities as well as in situ tailings pond treatment.
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Figure 1. Schematic of the environmentally safe tailings ponds clean up kit. The kit will contain the materials necessary for (1) toxic organic molecule degradation, (2) heavy metals decontamination, (3) removal of fine clay particles, and (4) degradation of GMO’s DNA.
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Platinum
Alberta Innovates Technology Futures
Oil Sands Initiative
https://2011.igem.org/Oil_Sands
Gold
Autodesk
Silver
VWR
Bronze
Integrated DNA Technologies
Bio Basic Inc.
Geneious
The Lethbridge iGEM Team requests your support in the following ways:
a) scholarship of one team member
b) Monetary donation towards lab supplies, travel arrangements and iGEM competition registration fees.
c) Tangible donations of lab supplies or other necessary materials.
Donations can be made in two ways:
1. Donations can be directed towards the U of L iGEM Scholarship account.
2. Donations can be directed towards the U of L iGEM General account and in recognition of your generous support, the U of L iGEM team would like to recognize you and/or your business as outlined in the sponsorship levels.
Platinum - $5000+ or gift in kind
Logo on team shirts, large logo on scientific poster, large logo on team wiki and verbal recognition during team project presentations/media interviews.
Gold - $2000-$4999 or gift in kind
Logo on team shirts, medium logo on scientific poster, medium logo on team wiki and written recognition at end of team project presentations.
Silver - $1000-$1999 or gift in kind
Medium logo on team shirts, scientific poster, medium logo on team wiki and written recognition at end of team project presentations.
Bronze - <$999 or gift in kind
Small logo on team shirts, scientific poster, small logo on team wiki and written recognition at end of team project presentations.
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