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Using Nature to Solve Man-made Problems

Using Nature to Solve Man-made Problems. The Facts. Huge environmental problem Polyethylene—most common plastic Biodegradable plastic CO2 emission Traditional Methods of Degradation Sunlight, moisure, oxygen, and composting. Previous Studies.

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Using Nature to Solve Man-made Problems

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  1. Using Nature to Solve Man-made Problems

  2. The Facts • Huge environmental problem • Polyethylene—most common plastic • Biodegradable plastic • CO2 emission • Traditional Methods of Degradation • Sunlight, moisure, oxygen, and composting

  3. Previous Studies • Convert polystyrene into a biodegradable plastic

  4. Previous Studies Sphingomonas bacteria and Pseudomonas eat polyethylene

  5. Previous Studies

  6. What We Could Do • Interesting • Scaling up • Increase the degradation rate • Address the CO2 emission problem • Safe • Basic research focusing on the biochemical pathway in Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas bacteria that help them eat plastic • Crazy • Reengineering Sphingomonas bacteria so they both degrade the plastic and take up the CO2 released during degradation

  7. Good IGEM Project? • Applicable • Borderlines Energy • Reasonable Size • Surprisingly Little has been done

  8. Sources • http://www.reusablebags.com/ • http://news.therecord.com/article/354044 • http://www.ucd.ie/cscb/main_pages/news/news010306.htm • http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5844268&page=1 • http://www.degradable.net/how/in_detail.shtml • http://genome.jgi-psf.org/draft_microbes/novar/novar.home.htm • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16649270

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