Difference between revisions of "Team:UI Indonesia"

Project Description

World population has reached 7 billion 238 million people. This number is predicted to increase by 10% each year, and double in seven years.

The increase in population is not balanced with the increase in food production. Population increase in geometric fashion, while food production increase in arithmetic fashion, as stated by Thomas Robert Malthus in his renowed “An Essay on the Principle of Population”. In his work, he coined the word “Malthusian catastrophe”; the state of social unrest, vice, and misery caused by the limited resources and unmet needs of the population.

This “Malthusian catastrophe” is not just a theory, in fact, it is happening as we are now. The extreme poverty, needs for education, and child and maternal death is few point of the “Millenium Development Goals” (MDGs), the formulation of problems arised from overpopulation crisis.

In pursuit of MDGs, population control is the key to solve the overpopulation problems. Thus, the need of contraception to solve the MDGs is principal. In Indonesia however, with the population of 237 million people, contraception program is far from success. Total Fertility Rate (TFR) that is increasing since 2002(TFR: 2,56) until 2012(TFR: 2,595) marks the problem in National Contraceptive Plans.

A factor that limit the application of contraceptive device is the convenience. Contraceptive pill needs to be consumed every day in the same hour, moreover, there are hormonal side effects to the pill. Injection method requires the user to be injected every month. Intra Uterine Devices are effective for long term treatment, however, not readily reversible. Barrier method such as condom is not convenient to be used every consummation. Calender based method and coitus interruptus are not reliable. Lastly, sterilization demands commitment of the user for not having any more child/children in the future.

Observing these problems, team UI_Indonesia try to create more convenient contraceptive method, we call it; BaContraception, short for Bacterial Contraception. Human Vagina contain 108-109 bacteria per gram vaginal fluid. More than 90% of these bacteria is Lactobacillus sp. which is commensal in human vagina. The culture of Lactobacillus sp. Creates acidic environment that is protective to human vagina, inhibiting the growth of pathogenic bacteria.

We sought to add spermicidal property to these Lactobacillus sp. Inhabiting the vagina. Thus, the woman inoculated with our engineered Lactobacillus sp. Are always on contraception. We also sought the device to be able to be switched to not producing the spermicidal protein. Thus, we design a toggle switch circuit that can be switched back and forth between producing the contraceptive protein and not by addition of simple sugars such as lactose and xylose.

We aim to increase the convenience using contraception, thus increasing the number of participant of the national contraception program. With our device, once inoculated in the vagina, the user does not have to worry about unplanned pregnancy for life, as the Lactobacillus sp. Keeps expressing the spermicidal protein until switched not to. To be fertile, the user only have to apply substance that switch the direction of the toggle switch. With these, user would be able to “plan” the pregnancy before, and reducing the unwanted pregnancy.