Team:Lund/Project

iGEM Lund 2019

Project

Welcome to the Project section of the iGEM Lund wiki. Here you can read about our project PRODEACC.

Background

With the development of the industrial sector and the growth of their dependency on using chemicals to improve the quality of human life, it was inevitable to reach a point where some of the major byproducts released after the production process were heavy metals. During the past fifteen years, with no proper restrictions and monitoring, toxic heavy metals like Arsenic, Lead, Mercury, and Cadmium found a way to contaminate several sources to which people are exposed on daily basis. Today, heavy metal sediments can be found in drinking water, soil, and even in fish. There are also non-anthropogenic sources of heavy metals contamination, these are also a huge problem.

In their charters, the World Health Organization define the amount of 10 µg/liter of Arsenic in drinking water as the maximum limit that anyone should be exposed to. In addition to that, the International Research Agency on Cancer (IARC) state that there is enough evidence to believe that ingesting Arsenic in amounts larger than the set guideline will lead to cancer in human beings.

In countries that are more developed strict laws and regulations prevent the spread of heavy metals in drinking water, while in less developed countries, industries get away with releasing several toxic heavy metals into the environment that eventually reach and contaminate the drinking water. Bangladesh, for example, is the first country in history fighting with mass population poisoning where 35 to 77 million people out of 125 million inhabitants are held at risk of drinking heavily contaminated water (A. Smith et al, 2000). The severity of the situation can be simply outlined by just looking at the numbers. The WHO sets a provisional guideline of 10 µg/liter of Arsenic in drinking water while in Bangladesh however, the concentration of Arsenic reaches 50 µg/liter (M. Raessler, 2018). In the long run, inhabitants will be suffering from a variety of diseases due to their contaminated water such as skin lesions, skin cancer, peripheral vascular diseases, and malignant neurological disorders (A. Smith et al, 2000).

While UNICEF is trying to implement measures that allow the prevention of the contamination of drinking water and soil, it still has a long way to go before the current problem of exposure to heavy metals is completely gone. Today, the most common way that heavy metals poisoning is treated is usually through a complicated method called chelation. It works is by exposing the patient with high levels of poisoning to a special set of drugs that bind to the heavy metals and remove them (C. Montoliu et al, 2013). At that stage, however, the effects of heavy metal poisoning would have taken their toll. Not only will patients have to endure all the possible diseases that come with being poisoned by heavy metals, but they have to also accept the risk and side effects of the chelation process.

Our Solution

Considering how urgent the situation is and how delicately it should be handled, our team’s goal is to engineer bacteria that can through a bioaccumulation process help get rid of heavy metals from the human body gradually and harmlessly. The final product is going to be a probiotic that can be embedded into yogurt and implemented into any dietary regimen. Its purpose will be to gradually remove heavy metals from the human body painlessly and seamlessly to avoid ever reaching the stage where the levels of toxicity become detrimental to the human health.

- The iGEM Lund Team

References:

  • Arsenic. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.greenfacts.org/en/arsenic/l-2/arsenic-9.htm#0
  • Smith, A. (2000). Contamination of drinking-water by arsenic in Bangladesh: a public health emergency. Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
  • Raessler, M. (2018). The Arsenic Contamination of Drinking and Groundwaters in Bangladesh: Featuring Biogeochemical Aspects and Implications on Public Health. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
  • Montoliu, C. (2013). Chelation: Harnessing and Enhancing Heavy Metal Detoxification—A Review. Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute.