Cost and time to create the strain (how would you call that?? Also, I need help to assess the cost and/or DALY)
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Access
A very important problem we wanted to tackle with our product, is the access people have to sources of vitamins. Indeed we researched what structures and programmes already existed in India, and found out it was a major issue.
One of the most important governmental programme that exists in India since 1975 for vitamin supplementations is the Integrated Child Development Services programme (ICDS). This programme monitors growth and provides supplementary foods, as well as education and primary healthcare for children under six and pregnant and lactating mothers. The programme is implemented through a network of community-level anganwadi centers (AWC), which gives supplementary food daily in the center, as well as take-home rations. Those supplements include doses of vitamin A and tablets of iron and folic acid, in order to prevent xerophtalmia - which can lead to blindness - and anaemia.
However, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) held in 2005-2006 in India reports that only 28% of children received those supplements and healthcare even though 4/5 of children under six lived in a region covered by an anganwadi center. In the 6 months preceding the survey, only 1/4 of the children between 12-35 months were given vitamin A supplements - and in 9 states of India, this number falls to less than 20%. The access to ICDS was improved in the recent years though (2). A national survey held in 2013-14 says that 46% of children aged 6-59 months had received vitamin A doses.
As for folic acid, the 2013-14 survey reports only 14% of children aged 6-59 months having received iron and folic acid supplements.
Though the programme holds great promises and has implemented more than a million anganwadi centers, it is clear that people’s access to them is still very limited. People have to walk to the nearest center everyday if they want to receive the supplements, which is not convenient especially in rural areas. We could also talk about the corruption but I don’t want to judge without hard facts and sources…
This observation held a major role in our design of a product that can be grown at home, in every village or household. A culture of micro-organisms doesn’t require any expensive infrastructures; in fact, most indian families have already been growing microbial cultures that are several generations old, by keeping part of their yoghurt each time as a starter for the fermentation of more yoghurts. As we have shown above (Célia’s part), a microbial culture can be grown on very simple media like potato juice.
We believe that a culture of yeast and bacteria that can be grown at home and produces vitamins in the fermented dishes, could reach far more people than the anganwadi centers: those cultures would only need to be distributed once, which would not be very costly since we can make very small and light package, and one culture could be the starter of many more cultures; and then people would not need to go to a faraway center everyday to get vitamins.
Our product is also more accessible in that it doesn't have the same geographic and climatic constraints than rice cultures. Contrary to Golden Rice, the rice developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Freiburg that biosynthesizes beta-carotene, which can only be grown in environments with very high water availability, a microbial culture can be grown anywhere. Even though this summer we mostly focused on microbial cultures of fermented dishes composed of rice, microbes are used to ferment any kind of cereals, as well as other foods. So our product can be adapted to a very wide range of fermented dishes, and could also be used by people who don’t eat rice.
Acceptance
Why "idli"?
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People's opinion
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[Abdou's data]
Taste & color
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An orthogonal GMO (is that even english??)
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Regulations & Safety
Strains' choice
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European regulations
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Indian regulations
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Final Product or Continuity
Someone else (Antoine ? <3) needs to fill that...
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Design
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 Applied Design award, you should also complete this page and tell us what you did.
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.
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.
