Pesticide Residue Killer

With increased agriculture activities around the world, it becomes a common practice to use pesticides to manage pest problem. Runoff can carry field pesticide into aquatic environment while wind can carry them to other fields, potentially affecting other species. Over time, repeated application increases pest resistance and facilitate the pest resurgence. Further, especially in China, toxic pesticide residues on green vegetable and fruits become a major public health problem.

In order to provide a solution, we design an engineered bacterium, secreting the OMP enzyme to degrade the common toxic pesticide residues. Its secretion is under the temperature control and can only be activated at specified temperature. To avoid the secondary pollution, a UV-induced suicide gene is inserted into the bacteria: upon exposure to UV or sunshine, the suicide procedure is induced. This purpose of the design is to remove toxic pesticide safely without affecting the environment.