Difference between revisions of "Team:CSU Fort Collins/Design"

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<h2>Design</h2>
 
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<h2>Proposed Process</h2>
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By talking about your design work on this page, there is one medal criterion that you can attempt to meet, and one award that you can apply for. If your team is going for a gold medal by building a functional prototype, you should tell us what you did on this page. If you are going for the <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Judging/Awards#SpecialPrizes">Applied Design award</a>, you should also complete this page and tell us what you did.
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<h2>Evaluating Design</h2>
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<p>In order to be considered for the <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Judging/Awards#SpecialPrizes">Best Applied Design award</a> and/or the <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Judging/Awards#Medals">functional prototype gold medal criterion</a>, you must fill out this page.</p>
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<p>This is a prize for the team that has developed a synthetic biology product to solve a real world problem in the most elegant way. The students will have considered how well the product addresses the problem versus other potential solutions, how the product integrates or disrupts other products and processes, and how its lifecycle can more broadly impact our lives and environments in positive and negative ways.</p>
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We spoke to employees at the City of Fort Collins to discuss how our process would integrate into frying oil recycling in our community. In Fort Collins, most restaurants pay a company to retrieve and recycle their oil into biofuels. Our process could allow for restaurants to break even or even potentially be paid for recycling their spent frying oil. And while Colorado is very eco-friendly, many places in the United States and around the world could benefit more incentive them to upcycle their oil. Our use of frying oil waste as an alternative substrate for chemical production would not necessarily replace, but expand the amount of frying oil waste recycled instead of sent to landfills. <br><br>
  
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The production of cytokinins in bacterial hosts also offers an important alternative to the time- and cost-intensive process of extraction from plant tissues. Our proposed use of biological hosts to manufacture reagents is part of a larger movement in the synthetic biology community to work towards safer production. Ideally, products would be transported outside of the cells. This way, the current standard of using harsh chemicals to extract the product is unnecessary. <br><br>
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If you are working on art and design as your main project, please join the art and design track. If you are integrating art and design into the core of your main project, please apply for the award by completing this page.
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The cheap production of zeatin would also allow for its expanded use in industry and agriculture. There is the potential for this to provide an alternative to the current standard of pouring enormous volumes of herbicide and pesticides onto crops. Zeatin could also be used in areas with poor crop performance to increase yields. <br><br>
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<h2>Functional Prototype Creation<h2>
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Our team attempted to build a functional prototype of both the trans-zeatin production and frying oil breakdown steps of our process.<br><br>
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We grew our strains with the trans-zeatin biosynthesis pathway in 1L bioreactors over 72 hours. While <a href=”https://2015.igem.org/Team:CSU_Fort_Collins/Results#product”>the results of this experiment</a> were inconclusive, we were able to design an experiment which represents a step towards the scaling up of our process. <br><br>
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We were able to show a functional prototype of our frying oil digesting strain. We developed an experiment which grew our strain on frying oil waste (both at 100% and 50% concentrations) donated to us by a local restaurant,<a href=”http://themayorofoldtown.com/”>The Mayor of Old Town</a>. The <a href=”https://2015.igem.org/Team:CSU_Fort_Collins/Results#break”>results of this experiment</a> showed that our lac promoter:fadD:fadL construct improved the cells’ ability to grow on actual frying oil waste. <br><br>
  
 
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Revision as of 18:19, 18 September 2015

Design

Proposed Process

BLAH BLAH BLAH PFD

Evaluating Design

We spoke to employees at the City of Fort Collins to discuss how our process would integrate into frying oil recycling in our community. In Fort Collins, most restaurants pay a company to retrieve and recycle their oil into biofuels. Our process could allow for restaurants to break even or even potentially be paid for recycling their spent frying oil. And while Colorado is very eco-friendly, many places in the United States and around the world could benefit more incentive them to upcycle their oil. Our use of frying oil waste as an alternative substrate for chemical production would not necessarily replace, but expand the amount of frying oil waste recycled instead of sent to landfills.

The production of cytokinins in bacterial hosts also offers an important alternative to the time- and cost-intensive process of extraction from plant tissues. Our proposed use of biological hosts to manufacture reagents is part of a larger movement in the synthetic biology community to work towards safer production. Ideally, products would be transported outside of the cells. This way, the current standard of using harsh chemicals to extract the product is unnecessary.

The cheap production of zeatin would also allow for its expanded use in industry and agriculture. There is the potential for this to provide an alternative to the current standard of pouring enormous volumes of herbicide and pesticides onto crops. Zeatin could also be used in areas with poor crop performance to increase yields.

Functional Prototype Creation

Our team attempted to build a functional prototype of both the trans-zeatin production and frying oil breakdown steps of our process.

We grew our strains with the trans-zeatin biosynthesis pathway in 1L bioreactors over 72 hours. While the results of this experiment were inconclusive, we were able to design an experiment which represents a step towards the scaling up of our process.

We were able to show a functional prototype of our frying oil digesting strain. We developed an experiment which grew our strain on frying oil waste (both at 100% and 50% concentrations) donated to us by a local restaurant,The Mayor of Old Town. The results of this experiment showed that our lac promoter:fadD:fadL construct improved the cells’ ability to grow on actual frying oil waste.