iGEM Brainstorming

 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

 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

 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

 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

 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

 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.