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From 2010.igem.org

Hypothetical Product Specification

The achievements in the wet lab and modelling are used here to inform our hypothetical product which will be the subject of our advertising campaign. Work by our wet lab is used as a proof of concept: confirming that our bacteria can be successfully engineered, sealed inside beads and react to soil nutrients.

The details of our product and potential market are intended to frame a scenario in which to place our advertising material. By assuming the extensive and time-consuming groundwork and product development to be complete, we hope to create materials that will spark interest and catch public attention to inform debate, rather than providing a detailed guide to bringing a synthetic organism to market.

There are many challenges to develop this initial work into a product fit for sale. A comprehension of these puts our campaign in context, and highlights some of the issues faced by synthetic biology. Producing a working and marketable device is not pivotal to our objective of comprehending and reacting to the public perception of synthetic biology technology, however some of the legislative and regulatory stages are considered later.

Specification

For our product to be plausible, it must be attractive to our target market, which will be primarily arable farmers.

To reduce extra work involved in the use of the beads, they need to be engineered such that they can be spread simultaneously with seeds, and detected at the same time as variable fertilising. This prevents the need for significant extra driving on land, which is costly and polluting. Therefore the beads must be:

• Comparable in size to seeds: able to be mixed and spread simultaneously

• Able to react to nutrients in the time between seeding and fertilising

• Readable in the driving distance time between tractor and trailer: to be sensed and reacted to as fertiliser is being spread

There are competing products available, such as satellite imaging technology that estimates nutrient needs from the reflection from the crop canopy. To be competitive, our angle is to bring precision farming to smaller farmers, for whom it may not be viable to install expensive systems. It appears that our device will also be better placed in the farming calendar than these, as it targets the initial fertilisation of the crop.

• Keep it cheap: set-up costs are one in-cab ‘technology box’ to read the bead signal and link in to either a variable fertiliser spreader or a manual display

• Bead prices per sack must be offset by the fertiliser savings: manufacturing of our beads needs to be economically viable

For the purposes of our campaign, it is also assumed that our product has passed extensive trials. Informed by our wet lab and modelling work we shall claim in our advertisements:

• The E. coli strain we have used is safe: it is not harmful and cannot live in the wild
• The bacteria are contained within a bead, minimising escape and interaction with the environment
• There has been minimal engineering of the genome, reducing the chance of deliberate misuse

The beads must be subjected to extensive trials and proven to be safe, passing EU and UK legislation for use. For profitable sale, they must also be patentable or protectable in some way. These issues are explored further later.

Relation to wetlab achievements

These claims can in part be supported by the work of our wet lab:

1. Comparable in size to seeds

The beads are of about 4mm diameter. Seed potatoes must be larger than 25mm , maize are about the size of peas . Variable spreader technology may be able to cope with even spreading of different sized objects simultaneously, otherwise we will have to look into costing an attachment that is cheaper than the fuel and time saved by another pass over the fields.

1. React to nutrients in the time between seeding and fertilising

The lab beads have shown colour change within a few days, and the bacteria appear to perish after about a week, as signal reduces.

“As a general principle, nitrogen should be applied at the start of periods of rapid crop growth and nitrogen uptake” . The DEFRA guidelines suggest variability between recommended nitrogen fertilisation timings – some on the seedbed, some at the small plant stage . More investigation is needed to ascertain whether the signal of our beads can penetrate through small plants to be read effectively and be of use to later fertilised crops. Our bead lifetime may also need to be variable, to avoid extra driving, but also to remain effective, or a crop-specific selection of products developed.

1. Readable in the driving distance time

The processing time of a viable and affordable spectrophotometer image and translation into variable spreading will need to be explored further.

1. Keep it cheap

Farmers are already spending money on in-cab technology. A custom-built box will need to be developed, comprising the spectrophotometer, UV lamp for increased bead detection and software to convert this into signal for the variable spreaders, which are already in use.

1. Bead prices per sack

The costs of scaling up our production are currently unknown, as we have been producing a very small amount in the lab. Scaling up our process and the costs incurred by trials and legislative hurdles need to be explored more thoroughly. Fertiliser prices will also need further investigation to ensure our beads are viable, and also to work out whether this might be an economically sensible venture.

1. The E. coli strain we have used is safe

The Escherichia coli, strain K-12 substr.MG1655 is a disabled laboratory strain. Its survival in the wild needs further research for proof that it will in fact die in the environment. It will need some modification to address the antibiotic resistance and prevent it from transferring to other organisms.

1. Bead escape

BSim simulations can be used to generate a preliminary estimate of the bacteria leak from the beads, drawing on our modelling work.

1. Chance of misuse

Our bacteria senses nitrogen and fluoresce – these are not dangerous abilities that can be turned into weapons.

(REFS:)

 http://topveg.com/2010/01/size-of-seed-potatoes/
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize#Seeds
 http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/landmanage/land-soil/nutrient/documents/rb209-rev-100609.pdf , page 31, 05/10/10
 http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/landmanage/land-soil/nutrient/documents/rb209-rev-100609.pdf , around page 100, 05/10/10