Team:KoreaSonyeodul

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  • COLLABORATIONS
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  • COLLABORATIONS
  • DESIGN
  • EXPERIMENTS
  • PROOF
  • DEMONSTRATE
  • RESULTS
  • NOTEBOOK
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  • BASIC
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  • PUBLIC OUTREACH
  • ETHICS
  • COLLABORATION
  • INTEGRATED PRACTICES
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  • Gold Medal
  • Silver Medal
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KOREASONYEODUL

Meal Worm Engineering

Background

Bacteria is a vital decomposer in our everyday lives. It decomposes and recycles things that can be reused in the nature. Our team came to think that this beneficial bacterium might be a solution to the problem regarding increasing trash in the Earth. Of all projects attempting to solve trash problems, research about plastic degrading bacteria is the most popular. However, our team felt that the research has not been efficient enough and fast enough to solve the fundamental problem. Through this research, as a student, we hope to dedicate to what our society is facing.

The fundamental purpose of the research is to generate a more efficient and fast plastic degrading process through the plastic degrading bacteria and make plastic bacteria practically usable. The current bacteria are slow in degrading speed and low in degrading quantity, so our research hopes to find better solution for efficiency.

Process of Research

• Observe the process of decomposing plastic by mealworm
• Measure the degree of decomposed plastic after a specific period
• Dissect mealworm which decompose plastic at that time
• Fix the process of decomposing inside the intestine of mealworm using chemical reaction and observe it
• Extract the DNA of dissected mealworm
• Model PCR based on extracted DNA
• Assort proteins which take part in decomposing plastic - Observe the structure of decomposed plastic
• Measure the speed of decomposing plastic of bacteria
• Measure the speed of decomposing plastic of bacteria in the same experimental setting after eliminating each DNA factor
  which takes part in decomposing plastic
• Compare the speed of decomposing, then choose the most efficient and the most harmless method