Team:Worldshaper-Wuhan/Description
Project Inspiration and Description
Arsenic (As), a metalloid, is a known carcinogen to human beings and other living organisms. Exposure to As can cause a variety of diseases including hypertension, skin, lung and bladder cancer. The growth of industry amplified the As and other heavy metals such as chromium(Cr), cadmium(Cd), nickel(Ni), mercury(Hg), arsenic and lead(Pb) due to the absence of proper disposal of industrial wastewater. Among of them, As is one of the most toxic and carcinogenic metals (metalloids) in the list of heavy metals.
Nowadays, conventional treatment of As is mainly rely on physical and chemical methods, however, they have some limits such as， second-contamination to the environment and cost a lot. So there is a need to use eco-friendly alternative way to eradicate such toxic metal(loid) ions from the industrial wastewater instead of using chemical treatment methods.
Microorganisms such as bacteria are inexpensive and it have been shown that microorganism bioremediation play an important role in bacteria are resistant to heavy metal(loids). Therefore, the detection and bioremediation of As pollution can be carried out by means of microorganisms.
Our program consists of two parts, one is to build a biosensor to detect arsenic in waters, and the other is to develop the arsenic bioremediation device. We hope to provide an environment friendly treatment to solve the As pollution based on synthetic biology .