Team:IvyTech-South Bend

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Water quality is an important recreational and general quality of living issue in northern Indiana as elsewhere. Public beaches can often be temporarily closed because of sewage contamination of the water. This is a direct effect of the antiquated water works in towns along the lakeshore and towns lining the tributaries such as the St. Joseph River that passes the Ivy Tech campus. During times of heavy rain fall the storm sewers and the sanitary sewers discharges can mix resulting in sewage discharge into the local body of water.

Monitoring water quality is complicated by the fact that the test for presence and quantity of coliform bacteria requires a 2 days of incubation for results. For swimmers and other beach enthusiasts a rapid quantitative water test would be desirable. The Ivy Tech-South Bend team, new to IGEM, is planning to building an IGEM from registry parts. In particular we hope to marry the “stop light” device developed by the British Columbia team in 2009 with a circuit built from registry elements that can be used to detect bacterial quorum sensing proteins. Our device will ideally detect the presence and relative concentration of quorum sensing proteins in suspect waters thus indirectly measuring the extent of contamination and therefore safety.