Team:UGent Belgium/WaterCollectorMeasures
Measures for the water collector
For our project, we are attaching modified E. coli Top10 cells to our water collector. As the water gets collected, there will be a small risk that the attachted bacteria will also find their way into the collected water. Our used bacteria is however a risk group 1 organism, with little to no risk for causing disease in humans. For our prototype, no further safety measures are therefor taken.
For future development, there are several paths that can be taken to make the collected water even more safe for drinking. The first could be to add a killing switch to the bacteria, or make the E. coli auxotrophic. Ideally, we could transplant the whole engineered system into a GRAS bacteria already used for feed application and probiotica such as Lactobacillus sp., and Bifidobacterium sp.
