About This Project

Nickel is a widespread pollutant around the world, especially in water, and causes many toxic effects including a wide range of allergic reactions.

Until now efforts for water clean-up from nickel have led to widely used chemical remediation methods. Our project is based on synthetic biology: we aim to develop a living system which would help nickel removal from water. Our bacteria are engineered to sense the nickel concentration in water, and to absorb metal ions to make removal easier and safer.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Our aim is to engineer a non-pathogenic bacteria, E.coli, which could be easily monitored to detect nickel concentration in water and which can be extracted from the environment.

The engineered bacteria would give a visible report signal to operators, changing their color in response to nickel concentrations in the environment. This signals another engineered bacterial population to accumulate the nickel from the environment.

Our project would be easily implemented in a purification plant, allowing a controlled removal of nickel-containing biomass and prevents the use of the chemical purification methods used today,

What is the significance of this project?

Our aim is to develop a bioremediation system, in order to produce a non-chemical way to remove the heavy metal from the environment. This would improve the existing remediation methods without the need of reagents.

Our project will be also submitted to the iGEM 2013 Competition, which will be held in Lyon and in Boston. This is the first year that a team from The University of Salento will take part to this event.

We're really excited to explore the world of synthetic biology.

What are the goals of the project?

Our project has been almost entirely financed by our advisor's laboratory where we work. Part of the lab supplies were offered by Dasit Sciences, our sponsor, and many professors in our department have offered their resources and instruments to achieve our research goal.

The funds from you will be used to support our participation in the iGEM conference in Lyon in October and the International Jamboree in November, in Boston.