Team:Calgary

CANOLA: one of Canada's largest agricultural industries

First bred in 1974, canola has gone on to become one of Canada’s leading crops. The industry contributes 19.3 billion dollars to the Canadian economy every year while providing 12.5 billion dollars in wages to 249,000 workers. Canada is also the number one exporter of canola in the world and annually exports 9 billion dollars worth of seed, oil, and meal to countries like the USA, China, Japan, and Mexico.

A major problem

Green seed causes millions of dollars of losses in the canola industry. We're here to change that.

Engineering a process to de-green canola seeds and establishing a market for chlorophyll derivatives.

Project

Help the canola industry.

Description

Overview

Learn more about the project as a whole and its inspiration.

Wet Lab

Production

Learn more about how we engineered E. coli to produce a water-soluble chlorophyll-binding protein.

Wet Lab

Remove chlorophyll in oil with protein

How we've shown that we can then emulsify the proteins to remove chlorophyll from oil.

Modelling

Inform the project.

How our many models directly impacted and informed the work performed in the wet lab.

Industry

Standardization

How we created software and a standard environment to be able to grade seeds accurately.

Industry

Weather

How we've created a tool that empowers farmers to make informed agronomic decisions.

Project Highlights

Green is the difference between profit and loss.

Chlorophyll Repurposing

An Anti-Fungal Treatment

Fungal growth has proven to be a destructive condition for canola plants and we may have found a solution.

Modelling

Understanding our protein in different environments

With the direction, knowledge, and tools supplied by Dr. Anderson we were equipped to design the experiments that would allow for the better understanding of the 6GIX protein in multiple systems.

Software

Optimizing the production and synthesis of DNA

Codon optimization is a standard problem in synthetic biology. We created a tool that removes repeats, hairpins, and keeps GC richness below a certain percentage.

Entrepreneurship

Commercializing our Project

Over the summer, we examined the entrepreneurial aspects of our project and navigated intellectual property regulations and market analysis techniques.

Project Components

Human Practices

We conducted in-depth conversations with professionals from both the academic and agricultural community in Alberta

Project

We created tools and mechanisms to help canola farmers, graders and crushers

Modelling

Computer modelling informed experimental design through every step

Software

We developed a hardware integrated computer vision algorithm to automate the seed grading process

Journal

We meticulously documented methods and protocols used throughout the project

Public Engagement

We engaged with the local community. Spreading our knowledge and eliciting public feedback.