Team:Guelph/Human Practices
The University of Guelph is known internationally for its research in agriculture, food, and the environment. At it's root, Guelph is made up of a community of people that truly care about food quality, sustainability, and the betterment of the environment. When studying and living in a city populated by people who live by this lifestyle, it is nearly impossible for any student at the University of Guelph to not be impacted by the initiatives established by this caliber of people. Whether it be the local campus farmers market, the high-end researchers brought in by the Ontario Agriculture College, or simply the cows that some pass by on their walk to campus, students that go to Guelph cannot help but think about the role agriculture plays in their lives.
When iGEM Guelph first initiated the Viosensor project, it was to test agricultural water runoff. However, Dr. Patrick Boerlin, a professor at the Ontario Veterinary College who focuses on infectious disease and antibiotic resistance, advised us to move away from testing water to testing actual animal produce. We then thought to produce a test that would determine the concentration of tetracycline in soil, however based on low antibiotic presence in soil and the ability of tetracyclines being able to degrade in direct sunlight, this seemed to be a poor idea to pursue. As a team, we wanted to monitor how much antibiotic really degrades in the sunlight and thus, we’ve performed a spread plate test which exposed a few disc diffusion assays to direct sunlight. This experiment concluded that tetracycline does degrade in fewer than 96 hours and allows for bacteria to quickly grow on tetracycline degraded media.
Human Practices
The Impact
This year's iGEM Guelph team is composed of students from diverse sectors of science, from Engineering to Animal Biology, who all share a unique drive to use science to improve the quality of life for others. Having an incredible amount of resources and inspiration for innovative ideas created for the agricultural industry, the VioSensor project was created. Creating an accessible technology that allows for antibiotic testing in real-world conditions equips farmers and society with another tool against antibiotic resistance.
A project's success is not only measured by it's results in the lab; a large indicator of successful science is how much of an impact it makes on a community. At iGEM Guelph we aim to make not only our project, but also to make synthetic biology more accessible and available to the public and to the next generation of scientists. This year we brainstormed ways we could collaborate and communicate with those outside of our team to get people excited about synthetic biology. See our Education and Public Engagement page to view the different initiatives we created.Integrated Human Practices
Dr. Boerlin also informed us that testing for antibiotics in products like milk and meat as well as animal by products like manure and urine would be a better use of our biosensor. This helped build our project around testing cattle milk which in Canada has a regulation of 100 ng/mL.1 At these lower concentrations of tetracycline and based on the results of our tetracycline MIC, we were able to re-design our project because our biosensor no longer needed tetracycline resistance.
To further broaden the use of our Viosensor we turned to Dr. Allan Merrill, a professor with the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Paul Kozak, a provincial apiarist working in the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs. They alerted us to the newly regulated antibiotic oxytetracycline in Canada.
They explained that a rising issue targeting honey bees is foulbrood. Foulbrood disease caused by a type of spore-forming bacteria which infects honey bee offspring which usually die at the pre-pupal or pupal stage. American Foulbrood is a disease caused by the bacteria Paenibacillus larvae and is highly contagious and is viable indefinitely.2 Cases of AFB can be so devastating that if a hive becomes heavily infected the best method to clean is to burn infected equipment. Oxytetracycline is the antibiotic used to treat the bees for American and/or European Foulbrood. Oxytetracycline is dissolved in sugar syrup which is then fed to bees.3
Oxytetracycline is an analog to tetracycline sharing near similar structure. The only difference between the two is that oxytetracycline has an added hydroxyl group on the 5C’. Being analogs, we believed that the Viosensor could currently detect oxytetracycline as well. A study was conducted in 2001 to detect oxytetracycline production using a tet-dependent system further confirmed this theory.4 Recently in Canada, oxytetracycline residue in honey is regulated to 300 ng/mL.1
Another challenge we faced during this project was how to create a useable field test in a way that was economical and sustainable. Dr. Andrew Gadsden(Department of Engineering, University of Guelph), was able to teach Sathyajith Pinikeshi (Head of Engineering Design) how to conduct cost analyses for product development and design functioning multi-component devices. After creating an interactive design the product was taken to Karl Fellbaum, a biotechnology technician working at food and environmental consulting firm Integrated Explorations, a company that does microbiological testing. He was able to tell us how the product differed from current test methods and how to use a cheap lyophilization technique to reduce cost.
In the images above, the top plate has been exposed to direct sunlight (Sun Plate) while the bottom image shows a plate that has been growing in the dark (Dark plate). We can infer that sunlight exposure to the antibiotic tetracycline caused the compound to degrade. The “Sun” plate also has a smaller zone of inhibition compared to the “Dark” plate, proving that degradation of tetracycline did occur. However, it should be noted that there is a clear difference between the original culture growth to the “second ring” of inhibition, showing that the cells have grown on the media after the antibiotic has degraded.
1. Health Canada. List of Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for Veterinary Drugs in Foods - Canada.ca. (2015). Available at: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health-products/veterinary-drugs/maximum-residue-limits-mrls/list-maximum-residue-limits-mrls-veterinary-drugs-foods.html. (Accessed: 21st October 2019)
2. Contributors to Wikimedia projects. American foulbrood - Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (2005). Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_foulbrood. (Accessed: 21st October 2019)
3. Oxytet or Oxysol. Countryfields Available at: https://www.countryfields.ca/pages/oxytet-or-oxysol. (Accessed: 21st October 2019)
4. Hansen, L. H., Ferrari, B., Sørensen, A. H., Veal, D. & Sørensen, S. J. Detection of Oxytetracycline Production by Streptomyces rimosus in Soil Microcosms by Combining Whole-Cell Biosensors and Flow Cytometry. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 67, 239 (2001).
Education and Public Outreach: Sneak Peak
This year we prioritized getting people involved and creating conversation about synbio and science. Below you can find a summary of the education and public outreach outlets we pursued. Follow the links to find out more.
Starting at Home: Guelph Syn Bio Club
Created a year-round club that promoted community engagement in synthetic biology. We collaborated, communicated, and supported with whomever showed interest in synthetic biology, no matter what the member’s background in may be in science! Find out more here.
Walking Around our Neighbourhood: iGEM & STEM SUMMER CAMP
We channeled our childhood curiousity and partnered with a local STEM summer camp to share our enthusiasm about science and synthetic biology with the next generation. Find out more here.
More Than Just a Local Dialogue: Podcast and Blog
Most scientists hard-earned data and results don’t get shared past their personal lab presentations, conferences, and thesis defences. That’s so much cutting-edge science locked away inside some really smart person’s brain! To try and breach this barrier, we created a podcast to create an avenue for students and researchers to share their research and findings in a conversational setting. Find out more here.
Forming a Blog: The Micron
To create more accessible media, we created a blog! You won’t find any beauty tips or Instagram worthy travel pictures here, just the hard facts of science and highlights of really interesting people. Find out more here.
Outreach: #LGBTSTEM Day!
Science is awesome, and we want everyone to feel included! To solve real-world issues, anyone interested in science should feel inspired and welcome to contribute their intelligence and unique perspective. We made it a priority to establish an outreach program that encouraged an open conversation for support of the LGBTQ+ community. Find out more here.
Reaching the Masses: Social Media Outreach
Like anyone who’s anyone, we’re on social media! Check us out at ourLab Twitter Pageand Lab Instagram Page!
