JUDGING

Medal Requirements

Bronze Requirements

1. Register the team, have a great summer, and plan to have fun at the Giant Jamboree.

It is always summer in Amazon! We are excited to have a great piece of Autum in New England at the Giant Jamboree!

2. Meet all deliverables on the Requirements page

Ohh yes, we did it!

3. Create a page on your team wiki with clear attribution of each aspect of your project. This page must clearly attribute work done by the students and distinguish it from work done by others, including host labs, advisors, instructors, sponsors, professional website designers, artists, and commercial services.

Man, until the last minute we uploaded and got it done. It is not an easy task to get one whole semester of hard work written in a Wiki space. But guess what...we mange that with mastery...LOL

4. Document at least one new standard BioBrick Part or Device central to your project and submit this part to the iGEM Registry (submissions must adhere to the iGEM Registry guidelines). You may also document a new application of a BioBrick part from a previous iGEM year, adding that documentation to the part's main page.

These parts refer to promoters that have no similar for Hg bioremediation in the Registry! Besides, these promoters could be suitable for constructions related to heavy metal bioremediation projects. Our collection include 8 promoters, all of them regulated by merR, sensible to Hg. They are: 1) Ptac1- for the log phase; 2) Ptac2 - a variation from Ptac1, operator located within the promoter sequence; 3) Ptac3- has its operator overlapping the region -35; 4)tPtac, a very stable promoter with 3 in-tandem sequences ; 5)Pjk26 - a very strong promoter for stationary growth phase; 6) tPjk26 - a variation from Pjk26 in-tandem promoter; 7) Universal promoter, a unique construction suitable for both growth phases;8) Universal promoter in tandem, being a very stable promoter. This collection is well validated with RFP measurement and the most promising ones characterized with HgCl2, increasing the Mer operon efficiency. Finally, the Pjk26 passed the bioreactor test. Click here to read more Project

Silver Requirements

1. Experimentally validate that at least one new BioBrick Part or Device of your own design and construction works as expected. Document the characterization of this part in the Main Page section of the Registry entry for that Part/Device. This working part must be different from the part you documented in Bronze medal criterion #4. Submit this part to the iGEM Parts Registry.

We are proud of the Bba_K2123107 a Device with a constitutive promoter (from Anderson promoter collection - Bba_J23100) and a new promoter (new from the Registry). Also we have merB gene, a lyase that cleave methyl radical from the CH3Hg, turning it to Hg2+ being prompt to be reduced to Hg0 by MerA (which is included in the Device). MerB also gives more activity spectrum to MerA. Take a look on the complete description Parts .

2. Convince the judges you have helped any registered iGEM team from a high-school, different track, another university, or institution in a significant way by, for example, mentoring a new team, characterizing a part, debugging a construct, modeling/simulating their system or helping validate a software/hardware solution to a synthetic biology problem.

USP_UNIFESP team project involves lots of molecular biology manipulations, in order to produce spider silk proteins associated with enzybiotics in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We established a partnership with them, exchanging different types of knowledge from our teams. To encourage and startup new teams in Latin America is a noble task which we are totally into. We participate in the TECNOx, a Latin American contest for disruptive technologies (including synthetic biology!) to help to solve the continent problems. We had a great interaction with teams from Argentina, Mexico and Colombia. From this event we also started a network in math modeling with experts from Buenos Aires University. The experience was so positive we brought a student (Denys Bulavka) to give a one-week workshop in modeling at our university. It was there, at the workshop, we learned a lot and we finished up this part of our project Collaborations.

3. iGEM projects involve important questions beyond the bench, for example relating to (but not limited to) ethics, sustainability, social justice, safety, security, and intellectual property rights. We refer to these activities as Human Practices in iGEM. Demonstrate how your team has identified, investigated and addressed one or more of these issues in the context of your project. (See the Human Practices Hub for more information.)

Through the campaign, our team developed an outreach guided by Education, developing practical and ludic activities, alongside lectures in schools, at high school levels, so students could easily understand. Our academic experience inspired us to come up with the Scientific Olympic Games, in which we integrated laboratory techniques into a playful competition. The students had the chance to be scientists for a day, even outside the laboratory. See more about these activities at: iGEM academy Kids have a huge potential to learn new things quickly and keep this knowledge for their whole life. With Science Kids Zone, our goal was to introduce future adults to Synthetic Biology as an applicable tool to solve many problems, such as mercury contamination in Amazon. They were told a short story about the evil mercury Merco, guilty of intoxicating rivers, and Bactie, our hero. You can learn more about it at the following link: Kids Science Zone We also began a crowdfunding campaign, as an alternative to get money for registration and avoid Brazil’s economic crisis. Our crowdfunding met a great national widespread, and more than raising money, we brought attention to the silent tragedy that is mercury contamination in Amazon rivers. People from diverse spheres of society (and even big companies!) felt touched by this issue and donated money for the international warning about what’s happening in Amazon. See the step-by-step to make a crowdfunding campaign we elaborated by clicking here Crowdfunding

Gold Requirements

1. Expand on your silver medal activity by demonstrating how you have integrated the investigated issues into the design and/or execution of your project.

Enlightenment and awareness are fundamental tools for modifications and improvements in our surroundings, whether in political, social or economical questions. The environmental issue, since the beginning, was a cause of repercussion among our iGEMers conversations. So we started seeking measures in order to generate sustainable results through a wide discussion about this matter, and urge responsible competent bodies. The team members researched ways to contact and a few legal instruments that could move the public authorities. We also established contact with workers of the legal field and, as a result of this partnership, came the participation on the biggest brazilian sustainability event: the “Virada Sustentável”; from then on, we forged closer relations with the Public Federal Ministry until we submitted the Public Civil Action. This is the more effective approach that allows us, citizens engaged on a cause, to have a voice to warn and exact the authorities using legal mechanisms. Seminars and Forums of Environmental Law were also results of the team’s efforts, that always counted on public participation. Through the public engagement we gained forces on the environmental changes necessaries to grant a better future to future generations. Keep up with our team’s developed political activities: iGEM Courthouse

The project gained an extra dimension when we realized the proportions of our genetic constructions effects on humans and nature. The ecological impacts of the construction of a bioreactor to mercury bioremediation is ideally incredible, however, the collateral damages are not well defined and need to be considered. There’s also a social impact involved: using Synthetic Biology as a tool on the construction of a non-polluted future. This is innovative to the amazonian man, increasing the hope that our team succeeds on the project’s progress. Motivated people can change the world. Check out the innovation that occurred on the heart of the Amazon on the link Scale-Up Bioreactor

2. Improve the function OR characterization of a previously existing BioBrick Part or Device (created by another team, or by your own team in in a previous year of iGEM), and enter this information in the part's page on the Registry. Please see the Registry Contribution help page for help on documenting a contribution to an existing part. This part must NOT come from your team's 2016 range of part numbers.

Bba_K1355004 was one of the best parts (at least for us) from our past project from UFAM_Brazil team from 2014. It has a bi-directional promoter regulated by mercury, and upstream to it there is a merR gene (repressor) and downstream we have transporter genes merT and merP besides the mercury reductase gene (merA). We improved this Device by deleting the bi-directional promoter and added two other ones: a constitutive promoter (from Anderson promoter collection - Bba_J23100) and a new promoter (new from the Registry) the JK26 under the name of . Also we added the merB gene, a lyase that cleave methyl radical from the CH3Hg, turning it to Hg2+ being prompt to be reduced to Hg0 by MerA (which is included in the Device). MerB also gives more activity spectrum to MerA. Take a look on the complete description.

3. Demonstrate a functional proof of concept of your project. Your proof of concept must consist of a BioBrick device; a single BioBrick part cannot constitute a proof of concept. (Remember, biological materials may not be taken outside the lab.)

The mercury bioremediation in laboratory conditions using Petri dishes, Erlenmeyer and shakers was a heck of accomplishment. However, taking this to fermentation level in a real bioreactor was the master piece! Even more when this physical device (the bioreactor) was made in the DIY (Do it Yourself) style, using an old autoclave and buying pieces in a mechanical shop. Off course we had help of experts, and learned a lot form them and in the process. You can check our bioreactor at .

4. Show your project working under real-world conditions. To achieve this criterion, you should demonstrate your whole system, or a functional proof of concept working under simulated conditions in the lab (Remember, biological materials may not be taken outside the lab.)

In our attempt to save Amazon’s ecosystem through synthetic biology, we developed genetic circuits in bacteria, enabling them to detect and bioremediate mercury contamination. Our work has tackled this challenge building a set of mechanisms where the first was 1) a library of promoters regulated by mercury; 2)the construction of a novel phytochelatin expressed at the membrane level in E. coli; 3) a brand-new bacteria to remediate contamination; 4) sequence a wild bacteria resistant to mercury;; and for final 5)we built the first bioreactor to treat mercury-contaminated waste in the competition; Now the best news! We had a great accomplishment! We have got close to 100% (97%) of mercury degradation in 18 hours of bacterial growth. In the Bioreactor we had 50% Hg degradation in the first 18 hours.