Project Description
Alcohol
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, many places lacked substantial medical equipment containing alcohol and the orders often surpassed the manufactured goods. “The skyrocketing demands have caused the price of the ingredients to go up about 200%” (Hoke, 2020). Many families fail to afford the necessary sanitary alcohol which might result in a higher risk of infection.
Not only can sustainable manufacturing of alcohol alleviate the impact of coronavirus, but it also could be applied to other fields, for example, environmental protection. Traditional fossil fuel usage would put a large amount of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. On the contrary, Ethanol, the ancillary product of alcohol, makes it possible for reducing carbon footprint in energy extraction.
With such a great need for alcohol, we are thinking about a solution for higher productivity of the alcohol and relieve the stress of alcohol shortage.
Fermentation
Ethanol, or alcohol, is commonly produced by the fermentation approach. This method can also contribute to environmental attribution as it hardly generates any pollution and wastes, which provides an eco-friendly manufacturing condition compare to the other method, chemical synthesis. However, due to the fact that fermentation requires more money and works in low efficiency, many companies favor the chemical approach over fermentation. Through fermentation, additional liquefaction enzymes and glucoamylase will be required which will cost a lot.
If yeast can be made to self-secrete the necessary enzymes, it can greatly reduce the cost and improve efficiency. Because the yeast must secrete enough amylase to support its growth at higher initial starch concentrations, and only growth can secrete enough amylase, this paradox leads to a prolonged yeast fermentation cycle that cannot meet industrial requirements. It is more in line with the industrial practice that the amylase still requires manual addition but the yeast could self-secret the saccharifying enzymes which can not only reduce the cost of the enzyme but also ensure that the fermentation cycle meets the requirements.
Our Work
With further research, we selected S. fibuligera, a membrane-coated yeast that can secrete glucoamylase. We intercepted the gene fragment responsible for the autocrine glucoamylase in the organism, optimized the codon, and inserted it into the plasmid vector as the target gene. Then we isolated the plasmids, and eventually transferred them into the yeast to produce alcohol through fermentation. After that, several function tests would be conducted to analyze the performance of our engineered yeast.
While the wet lab was carrying out the experiments to develop the product, the dry lab was carrying out research data collection, diverse promotion, and marketing activities. We are not only launched our projects but also made the future plan.
Reference
By Associated Press, & Reuters, B. (2020, April 1). Shortage of Ingredients Delays Production of Sanitizers. Voice of America.
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