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From 2010.igem.org

Friday 28th May - Ideas

The whole team's very first brainstorm. Focusing on the water industry, we managed to develop some interesting ideas to research further, which include: 1. Self healing pipes - a method for pipes to 'recover' from damage using bacterial biofilms. 2. Water desalination - how we can use specialised bacteria to lower the salt content of sea water to make it drinkable. 3. Lowering nitrate levels - using bacteria to lower nitrate levels in rivers, helping to promote healthy living conditions for fish 4. Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus ratios - alteration of these using bacteria to inhibit growth of pathogenic bacteria 5. "Bactoshave!" - the bacterial shaving system... (patent pending)

Wednesday 23rd June - Pseudo-meeting

A small meeting between Thomas Leach, Narmada Herath and Steven Garrett comparing 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 iGEM projects from other universities. Particular interest was taken in microbial fuel cells, as these may be adapted for desalination. We're hoping to look further into exploiting this to desalinate samples of water, possibly in cartridge form Previous projects using search and destroy bacteria and self healing pipes were also considered in some detail. These will be discussed further during the next meeting. The Wikis we noted were: 2009: - Lethbridge, City College San Francisco and Missouri (bacterial fuel cells) - Columbia (sea water salt detection) - Wisconsin (increased resistance to salt) - Brussels (E.coli glue) - Newcastle (ion sequestering) 2008: - Heidelberg (targetting biofilms in pipes) - Brown (electrical reporting system) - Lethbridge (Search and destroy harmful hydrocarbons) - Calgary (pathogen killing machine) - Illinois (cholera detection) - Newcastle (B. subtillus as a biosensor) - Edinburgh (producing starch from cellulose and biomass) 2007: - Columbia (biosensor) - Glasgow (fuel cell) - MIT (clearing mercury contamination) - Turkey (pH dependent metal ion transporter) - South Utah (cyanide biosensor) - Brown (Lead contamination) 2006: - Edinburgh (sensing arsenic in drinking water)