Project

iGEM UT-Tokyo

Background

Microorganisms are critical in ecosystems as they act as decomposers. Without them, the surface of the earth might be covered with fallen leaves and dead bodies. Bioremediation is the use of this natural property of microorganisms to remove pollutants. Conventional bioremediation has a demerit; it takes much more time to get rid of pollutants, compared to physical/chemical remediation. Synthetic biology made it possible to create microorganisms that are specialized for bioremediation, thereby paved the way for bioremediation with high efficiency. In the past iGEM competitions, a lot of teams has developed devices for bioremediation. Most of the projects focused on how to deal with substrates; collection, reduction, etc. and did not pay much attention to the efficiency of the system.

However, we predict that these devices requires high concentration of substrates and/or microorganisms to work efficiently.

To solve this problem, we designed "Self-Mustering with Aspartate-Responsive Taxis (SMART) System." The basic strategy of the SMART system is quite simple. "The higher the concentration of microorganisms around substrate, the better the efficiency of bioremediation." Take a look at two movies below, and you will see microorganisms decompose the substrate much faster with SMART system. From this simulation, we could say that ... (graphs and some other data needed, under construction.)

In short, SMART system is designed in such a way so it is applicable to allow bioremediation of various substrates with good efficiency.

In the System page, we will introduce details of the SMART system.