Team:Brown-Stanford/REGObricks/Introduction

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== '''Project Overview''' ==
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== '''Introduction''' ==
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Before bringing synthetic organisms to do work on Mars, one needs to answer the question of what to feed the cultures. Bringing media and nutrients from the Earth to supply large-scale bioreactors is slow and inefficient. PowerCell is a cellular energy generator engineered with blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) to fix atmospheric N2 and CO2 and export them to other cells.  When grown alongside synthetic Escherichia coli, these highly compatible “power plant” cells will fuel the generation of useful products such as medicine, heat, food, and other necessities. Our project aims to prove that cyanobacteria co-cultured with E. coli can become a self-sustaining system.
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Rather than using materials shipped up from Earth, it is more cost-effective to use the on site regolith to create the solid structures needed for long-term stay on Mars. REGObricks uses bacterium Sporosarcina pasteurii, which excretes ammonia and carbonate as byproducts of the urease reaction, to create calcium carbonate crystals that bind the regolith particles to form a brick with compressive strength comparable to concrete. In addition to making bricks using the biocementation process, we will evaluate the space-worthiness of S. pasteurii as well as being making a toolkit to standardize this bacterium to current synthetic biology standards.  
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[[File:Brown-Stanford InvA.png|center|400px]]
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[[File:Brown-Stanford Urease.png|center|600px]]
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Revision as of 21:30, 17 August 2011

Brown-Stanford
iGEM

Introduction

Rather than using materials shipped up from Earth, it is more cost-effective to use the on site regolith to create the solid structures needed for long-term stay on Mars. REGObricks uses bacterium Sporosarcina pasteurii, which excretes ammonia and carbonate as byproducts of the urease reaction, to create calcium carbonate crystals that bind the regolith particles to form a brick with compressive strength comparable to concrete. In addition to making bricks using the biocementation process, we will evaluate the space-worthiness of S. pasteurii as well as being making a toolkit to standardize this bacterium to current synthetic biology standards.

Brown-Stanford Urease.png

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