Synthetic Intelligent Ranger E. coli for Nematodes (SIRENS)

Plant-parasitic nematodes which are ususlly too tiny to catch sight of, cause serious losses to agricultural crops worldwide, and over 5000 species of 200 genus can parasitize the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, buds and seeds of manifold plants widely.

In our project, we designed three modules separately to attract and poison plant-parasitic nematodes. The E.coli would express attractant to lure nematodes when exposed to light whereas express toxic proteins to kill them as a result of the promoter’s reverse in the dark.

Assuming there is a farmland, gas diffusion model and nematodes’ movement analogue simulation are used to find the best position where the device should be placed. And a database is built to enlarge the range of our application to kill more different pests.

According to our survey, the farmer did not realize the damage of nematodes and we provided some suggestions to them. We interviewed related experts, dropped in the countryside, analyzed the soil sample, communicated with other teams, did assistance and so on.