Christopher Brunson

1. Christopher Brunson iGEM Brainstorming

2. Idea 1: Oil Spill Clean Up • Oil spills can release up to 1.5 million tons of crude oil into the ocean • Current efforts include use of detergents, mechanical clean up, and organisms such as bacteria • Some denser oils such as PCB (poly-chlorinated biphenyls) are harder to clean up • Cost billions of dollars in damage to the economy and to the wildlife

3. Current Situation • Engineer bacteria or yeast to clean up the oil spill • Current microorganisms used in clean up do not convert the crude oil to anything useful • Should engineer bacteria to convert the crude oil into more useful alkanes, hydrogen gas, or other petroleum derived products

4. Proposal • Bacteria naturally produce surfactants • Find a naturally occurring gene that would allow the bacteria to produce hydrogen gas, natural gas, or more bio-friendly alkanes from the oil spill • Crude oil also contains about 10% sulfur, so bacteria that thrive on sulfur would be ideal

5. Idea 2: Blood Clotting • Hemophilia and von Willebrand’s Disease result from imperfections in the clotting cascade • Mutated genes that produce Factor VIII, IX, and von Willebrand’s Factor • Heritable inability to coagulate efficiently/at all • Patients often bleed for extended periods of time

6. Present Situation • Current treatment consists of injections of the relative clotting factors • Can be human, recombinant, or porcine • Patients often produce antibodies to the porcine clotting factors • Treatment can cost hundreds of dollars a year • Anticoagulants are also a problem as they induce continued bleeding

7. Proposal • Engineer bacteria or yeast to produce the relative clotting factors (VIII, IX, von Willebrand) • Take gene from humans using colony PCR and insert into vectors • Factors can either be produced in sizable quantities in vitro, or bacteria can be administered when injury occurs in vivo • If applied to the affected area, immune markers would have to be removed from the bacteria.