Team:Technion-Israel/Integrated
Integrated
Collaborations and consultations with experts are the driving force for the existence and improvement of a project.
In this chapter, we will elaborate on several instances where we have approached industry and experts, and how they have helped us achieve important breakthroughs in our project.
Academia
Prof. Aron Henn - Modeling
To develop a comprehensive theoretical model that describes our synthetic "honey stomach”, we have consulted with different experts in the field of enzymes' kinetics and gene regulation.
One of these experts was prof. Aron Henn, a specialist in enzymes' kinetics. During our first consulting meeting with him, he raised the question of whether the pH changes significantly during the process, a point we did not consider before. After modeling this change and verifying it by experimental results, we returned to him with the conclusion that the pH drastically changes in our system. Consequently, he raised an additional issue which is whether our three main enzymes are affected by these changes or not. We have researched the subject but did not find the desired information. As a result, we conducted lab experiments and found that two of our enzymes are affected by the pH change, which we took into account in our modeling work.
Eventually, our modeling work was motivated by questions directly derived from our meetings. These questions guided us to include the pH change as well as its effect on the enzymes in our project.
Industry
Bio-castle company
To produce synthetic honey, we needed to maintain free diffusion of hydrogen peroxide as well as target proteins between the “unprocessed honey mixture” and the engineered bacteria, so that the "Honey circuit" could sense the solution and secrete enzymes in a controlled manner. Another requirement is to ensure that there are no bacteria left in the solution after the processing is done, making the product safe for consumption. Lastly, it is necessary to provide nutrition, such as found in LB medium, to allow proper bacterial growth and to enable the secretion of proteins. However, no traces of these nutrients should be found in the final product, for it to be considered honey.
To overcome these issues, we collaborated with an Israeli company named "Bio-Castle", and together we changed the use of one of their products, originally used for biodegradation of contaminants in water.
After a long discussion with the company representatives about their work, our project and iGEM in general, we decided to cooperate.
We believe "Bio-Castle" provides a useful platform for many iGEM projects as a lab-scale model and even for future industrial-scale projects. Therefore, we would like to showcase our work using these capsules to expose more iGEM groups to this product.
As mentioned before, we adjusted the product for our needs. While the original design was to allow for contaminants to enter the capsules and be degraded there by the bacteria inside, we used the capsules as a tool for protein secretion to the solution, while allowing hydrogen peroxide entry.
We hope other iGEM teams will take into consideration the use of such a capsule as a selective separation tool. We also hope our work will prove that the capsules meet the standards of biotech and food applications by growing the encapsulated bacteria and allow only the secreted enzymes to leave the capsule.
Our search for nectar
Once our team decided on the "BeeFree" honey idea– the first step was to better understand the biochemical processes that occur during honey production, starting with flower nectar, as it is done in the bee's stomach.
However, we have encountered various conflictions regarding how nectar is collected, the nectar composition from local flowers and the key steps in honey production. To ensure our sources are accurate and relevant, we have reached out to experts in the field.
We have approached Dr. Yael Mandelik from the Israel Volcani center, and Dr. Iris Yedidia and Dr. Victoria Soroker from the Hebrew University - with whom we exchanged emails and conducted phone consultations. We have discussed flower types, ways to collect nectar, what attracts bees to a specific flower, the difference in nectar content, and how the honey industry mimicks nectar.
Those discussions helped us to choose the synthetic substrate we want to process - and finally, the experts have referred us to a company named "Zuf Globus" (In Hebrew: "globe nectar"), with which we cooperated.
Tsuf globus
After we had launched our project, we needed to find a substrate for our honey-making process. We searched for relevant studies and consulted with key personnel from the Israeli honey industry. One of our meetings was with doctor Alexander Gorsheet – the founder and CTO of "Tsuf Globus", a company that makes special medical honey by mixing “nectar-like” herbal solutions – with which they feed their bees. After sharing our ideas with them, we decided to collaborate, and they gave us a sample of their nectar solutions for our experiments -hoping we can get a product with the same properties as their honey.
Because the company has commercial patents and technologies for making their nectar, and our project focuses on processing the nectar, we believe that such a collaboration can be beneficial for both parties.
This partnership gave us a potential future way to integrate our bacterial process with the local honey industry.
