Team:ASU
Chlamydomon[AS]
Transforming Clean Water by engineering Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to provide a renewable solution that binds, reduces, and sequesters arsenic.
We are the Arizona State University iGEM team, the creators of chlamydomon[As], an algal system for
the remediation of arsenic from drinking water.
Problem
Over 300,000 people in our state get their water from domestic wells, but
they’re not regulated
by any government agency. Also, most well owners aren’t properly trained and are often
unfamiliar with water quality standards.
As a result, 19 percent of the drinking water wells in the Southwestern United
States exceed the
maximum tolerated level of arsenic and 2.1 million people throughout the U.S. may be
drinking
contaminated water.
Solution
By engineering the chloroplast of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, we provide a
renewable solution
that binds, reduces, and sequesters arsenic directly from the water.
Engineering
With biosafety in mind, we are building a filtration system to Integrate with
our algae that will
allow us to clean the water safely and effectively.