Difference between revisions of "Team:OLS Canmore/Integrated Practices"

INTGRATED PRACTICES

This year, our team worked very hard in order to incorporate human practices to not only inform people about our project and about iGEM, but also to build our knowledge to allow for further development of our project.

We achieved our goals by communicating with the industries that face the issues regarding keratin waste. From there we spoke to them about the effects this issue had on the industry and asked them for feedback or suggestions that could contribute to the improvement of our project. We used these insights, suggestions, and support, given to us through these connections, to build upon our project. This communication with the industries is the driving force in the continuance and development in our project this year.
In the previous iGEM season, when we first started working on this project, we began to connect with our local wastewater treatment plants. One of our student members, Alina Arvisais, and our supervisor, Mrs. Puurunen visited the Canmore Waste Treatment facility. This trip gave us a lot of insight into how treatment plants function, current removal and disposal methods for the hair, as well as where in their system keratin waste is an issue. They spoke to the workers about how our project could benefit them, asked them for suggestions in regards to implementation.

From that tour we found direction for the first year of this project. One important thing that we found out through the visit, was that the only current way to remove the hair build up from the systems in a water treatment plant is to have a worker go in, and manually rake it out it. This buildup can also cause blockages or break of parts of the system.The employees at the plant told us that our construct would be extremely useful to them, and would save them both time and money. We found that the Canmore facility among others, include the use of bioreactors in their treatment processes, which inspired us to look into how bioreactors work, as well as how we could utilize that system.

This year we focused on maintaining the lines of communication that were opened last year, as well as starting new ones. We chose to do two tours of wastewater treatment plants in order to learn more about the industry and keep up our connection with this industry. We spoke with individuals in three different industries that would be affected by our project; water treatment, the poultry industry, as well as industry which makes useful products from organic waste.

Wastewater Treatment Facilities

Canmore Wastewater Treatment Facility
The first tour way we did that this year, was a tour at the wastewater treatment plant in Canmore. Two team members, Acacia Morales and Freya Morgan toured and spoke to the workers at the plant about our implementation idea. They informed us that it may be hard for us to implement a bioreactor of our design into their existing system, because every plant has a different process. We also talked about how our construct might not be ideal in their specific plant, because the places that they get keratin build up and experience the negative effects see high flow rates of water throughout short periods of time, and if we were to incorporate our bacteria, right there, it would be washed away. We had to think about this and thus changed our ideas surrounding implementation.

Originally we had hoped we could just integrate a bioreactor into their plant, but it became clear it would not be that simple. After this we then decided to visit our other local waste treatment facility for insight, because it became evident that our original plan needed tweaking. From this meeting we began to seriously consider creating an enzyme which could be put directly into the system and separated from clean water with other enzymes used in the system currently.

Banff Water Treatment
Our second visit to a wastewater treatment plant was to the facility in Banff, a town 27km away from us. The three students that attended were Alina Arvisais, Talia Dixon and Freya Morgan. Through the informative tour and discussions, we were able to foster a new relationship with other people in the industry, giving us new perspectives, as well as additional feedback. We learned about their system, which involves an entirely different system from that in Canmore.
They too used bioreactors in their treatment, however they would find implementing an enzyme or bacteria would be preferable to new equipment. They also showed us around their lab, talked about different eukaryotes and bacteria they currently use in their process, and how they monitor their systems with daily testing; an insight that we did not have access to with our contact in Canmore. Having this conversation with the employees there reinforced our idea that implementing our construct would be beneficial, and that we could hope to do so in a bioreactor.

When discussing their bioreactors, we learned that they typically have lower temperatures and different optimal conditions from that which we use for the E. coli strain that we use in our lab. At that point we had to consider how we might tackle that if we were to implement our construct. Some further research indicated that we could use a different bacteria or a purified enzyme in their system for optimal enzyme action. While touring the facility, we also talked about how they currently deal with the hair waste. They send all of their solid waste products, including hair, to Walker Environmental, which is a company that makes useful products from organic waste. This discovery sparked an idea in us: that the complete enzymatic breakdown of the keratin protein could allow for the potential of a high quality useful protein product.