Team:FAFU-CHINA/top
The problem of uranium contamination is a source of great concern. Uranium could have severe detrimental health effects (it is particularly harmful to the liver, kidney and bones) and lead to environment issues (chemical and radioactive hazards). Current treatment options available for uranium leaks in nuclear power plants or uranium pollution around ore-fields, such as ion exchange, flocculation-setting and phytoremediation, all have limitations including their high cost, low efficiency and the sheer complexity of the involved procedures.
To address these problems, the Peking iGEM team aims to construct a novel functional biomaterial consisting of multiple functional protein modules. This material is designed to be produced and secreted by bacteria, and self-assembled to form a protein hydrogel. In combination with a specific uranyl-binding protein, it obtains the ability to adsorb uranyl ions. After very short contacting with polluted water, the uranyl-laden biomaterial, which also contains a monomeric streptavidin module, could be easily retrieved using biotinylated magnetic beads.
This uranyl-binding biomaterial shows a series of advantages, such as high specificity, high efficiency, self-assembly and renewability. Furthermore, the uranyl-binding module could be replaced or combined with modules that are capable of binding other heavy metal ions, as well as fluorescent proteins, obtaining multi-functionality. By taking advantage of modularization in the design, additional applications beyond uranium adsorption could be developed based on this material in the future.
Project
The Peking iGEM 2016 developed a novel remediation method, Uranium Reaper, which could remove uranyl ions (the predominant form of aqueous uranium) with high efficiency, thus offering great convenience.
Practice
The Peking iGEM 2016 has been focusing on current treatments of uranium pollution worldwide and how to solve the pollution using synthetic biology. Besides the Urinium Reaper project, we did a lot of human practices as well.
Achievements
The Peking iGEM 2016 has done a lot of experiment and completes the Uranium Reaper project with a high degree. We also put a lot of effort on work beyond experiment. In this summer, we achieved a long list of main achievements.
