Difference between revisions of "Team:BGU ISRAEL/HP/Gold"

Every science research first requires a collect of information and introducing of the field. One of our major goals in the project, was to raise awareness of the plastic hazard. Thus, before we could pass our knowledge to others, we did a comprehensive investigation of plastic's implications. We met senior professors and researchers who focuses on different aspects of plastic waste.

Prop. Alex Sivan, a researcher from our university that one of his research interests is Microbial degradation of plastic wastes. We consulted prop. Sivan about the enzyme we should work with. Along to wide Literature research, we have learned that LC - Cutinase is an enzyme who knows for his ability to break PET first bond in the metabolic degradation pathway. We noticed that there is an extend research about this enzyme property. From that point we decided to work with LC - Cutinase as the PET first bond breaker. Dr. Sarel Flaysman - Principal investigator from Department of Biological Chemistry, Weizmann Institute of Science. We contact Dr. Flaysman in order to introduce him our project. Dr. Flaysman suggest us to use his algorithm- PROSS, who preform rational mutations in proteins and improve their activity by making them more thermodynamic stable.

After we collect that info, we were ready to start the lab research. For that we met Prof. Amir Aharoni - a researcher from our university that focus in Protein Engineering for the study of complex biological processes. Prof. Aharoni helped us to apply our theoretical knowledge to lab terms. Meanwhile we also investigated the metabolic pathway part, we read lot of article and found out about the Pseudomonas putida bacterium.

Prop. De Lorenzo - his research exploits advanced molecular biology and genetic engineering of microorganisms for the sake of biomonitoring, bioremediation etc. He use in particular P.Putida. We contact him and ask about the P.Putida bacterium.

Prop. De Lorenzo answered our questions, sent us pSEVA plasmids and turned us to Prof. Dan Tawfik and Dr. Halim Jubran, Department of Bimolecular Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, That provided us with the P.putida KT 2440. We also consulate Dr. Shimon Bershtein, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, about Assistance with P.putida resistances and genetic engineering. As we gather information about our Substrate we moved to design our science research. Thus we address our PIs for science advises and met diverse researchers who helped us combine an efficient work patterns.

All project long we continued to encounter experts who deal with plastic as a raw material in industrial ways, the main ones was - Coca-Cola Company, Genome compiler and Carasso Science Park . We have learned about plastic's convenient properties that makes him so popular and easy to use, such as- flexibility, rigidity, lucidity and much more.

Finally, we aimed to get familiar with plastic waste degradation solutions. Therefore, we visit 'Neot Hovav- eco industrial park', 'Aviv- Recycling Industries' and 'ADAMA Agricultural Solutions' . At our visit in Aviv recycling plant we saw and understood the process of plastic recycling – from the arrival of the plastic bottle to the plant, to transforming it to raw material for other products.

One of the most interesting and important things we've learned during the tour is that 99% of the raw material (the output of the recycle process) is than used to producing products that cannot go through the recycle process again. It was here, that we really understood the enormous damage lies in plastic waste and that we have to find a different solution to deal with this problem.

The investigate process we have done helped us understand how major and severe the issue of accumulate of plastic waste is. This increase our motivation and drove us to work harder in order to find an efficient solution.