Team:HiZJU-China/Human Practices
After determining the goal of detecting and degrading environmental estrogen in water bodies, by analyzing the emission channels of pollution sources, we decided to visit the sewage treatment plant as the first step of our human practices. The sewage treatment plant is a link connecting upstream pollution sources (pharmaceutical companies and livestock farms) and downstream sewage treatment and discharge. We are trying to learn more about the current sewage treatment technology so that we can find out which part of the up and downstream framework has problems. Also, we want to understand how our project will be applied to real-world sewage treatment, and what changes we should take to make our project better applied.
Therefore, we visited the Linjiang Water Treatment Plant in Qiantang New District, Hangzhou. Linjiang Water Treatment Plant has rich experience in using biological methods to treat industrial wastewater. They also use other methods, including chemical methods and physical methods. Mr. Lu, a worker in the sewage treatment plant, gave us a lot of helpful information, including the treatment standards for industrial wastewater and various pollutants that current wastewater treatment industry mainly targets. During the visit there, Mr. Lu gave us a detailed introduction to the various workflows of sewage treatment, explained the relationship between the sewage plant and the government together with upstream enterprises, and the necessity of degradation from the perspective of a frontline worker. After the visit, we conducted an interview with Mr. Lu and introduced our project to him, including the possible application scenarios in the sewage treatment plant. Happily, we received positive feedbacks. We have made the visit into a vlog.
After visiting the sewage treatment plant, we realized that although the enrichment of EE2 will cause undeniable harm to the environment, the current large-scale municipal sewage treatment system has not yet conducted effective detection and degradation of endocrine disruptors, including EE2. On the one hand, the government's supervision of water pollutants does not involve this aspect. On the other hand, the sewage treatment plant also lacks corresponding technical means and financial support. When we contacted with the Hangzhou Chengxi Wastewater Treatment Plant, their response also confirmed our inference. They introduced us to a pollutant detection company that is cooperating with them, and we contacted with them immediately, hoping to learn about the detection requirements and related technical information of environmental estrogen. However, the person in charge of the company informed us that the traditional inspection company cooperating with the sewage treatment plant only meets the demand of municipal sewage treatment thereby does not involve the detection of new pollutants like EE2. Fortunately, they introduced us to Focused Photonics. As a leading domestic provider of urban intelligent overall solutions, Focused Photonics has made very cutting-edge progress in the research and development of environmental monitoring and environmental governance. At the same time, as a market leader in the environmental testing business, Focused Photonics also has extensive experience in the application scenarios of new technologies. When we first contacted with Focused Photonics and learned that its business involves estrogen-like testing, we were very happy. This is undoubtedly a breakthrough of our project.
We were fortunate to contact with Mr. Lyu Quanchao from Focused Photonics and held an online meeting with him. Mr. Lyu gave suggestions on our project from two aspects: inspection design and commercial planning. He suggested that we change the original hardware design from the circuit diagram to the optical circuit diagram in order to improve the logic and detection accuracy of the hardware circuit. At the same time, he also made future planning and application scenarios for our project from the perspectives of civil and government supervision.
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To learn more about the hazards of environmental estrogen, we contacted with Dr. Pan from Zhejiang Maternity and Child Health Hospital, hoping to know more about the hazards of environmental estrogen in the current diagnosis and treatment process from the doctor's point of view. She told us that the current concentration of environmental estrogen that enters the body through in vitro is not enough to exert a great pathogenic effect, but it will affect the occurrence of a series of diseases such as precocious puberty, endometrial hyperplasia, and vaginal bleeding. At the same time, Dr. Pan also affirmed the application value of our project.
In October, we held a workshop with DUT-China, SJTU-Biox-Shanghai, NFLS-China and OUC-China. We invited teachers in the field of synthetic biology, ecotoxicology, and companies in the field of rapid inspection, along with college students who have legal backgrounds to share ideas and discuss. We hope that more people can know the concept of new pollutants, and we also want to gather strength in the way of exploring solutions to new pollutants from multiple dimensions. In the workshop, Prof. Zhang from Ocean University of China communicated with us and made suggestions for our project from the aspect of ecotoxicology. Our five team formed the New Pollutant Alliance, we also created a Wiki together.
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We managed to contact with the Hangzhou Ecological Environment Bureau to learn more about the specific indicators, procedures, rights and responsibilities of upstream wastewater pretreatment testing, and to find out the current regulations and laws of the wastewater treatment for the handling of bacteria used. We have noticed that environmental estrogen is not yet an environmental indicator, but officials have realized the harm of some new pollutants such as environmental endocrine disruptors and antibiotics, and are considering setting indicators for them. In addition, we were surprised to hear that there is almost no official law on this issue because biological methods are rarely used. This fact strongly shows that wastewater treatment is an urgent area in government management that requires more attention. Environmental estrogen seems like the elephant in the room. If the government turn a blind eye to it without monitoring it, the elephant will break through the wall one day.
ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center
ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center
On August 10th, the whole team went to ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center for academic communication. We learned the interface control and corresponding operation of various software in connection with our project. We specifically learned the operation of PyMol, which is used to assess proteins and evaluate ligand morphology as well as binding sites.
For instance, ledock tool was used to calculate binding free energy in order to estimate activity, and online PLIP tool was used to describe binding sites and hydrophobic forces. Moreover, EVOEF2 was used to analyze the unit point mutation of the sequence when programming in the Linux environment. Consequently, the optimal amino acid residue sequence was obtained.
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Professor Lu Huijie
We talked to Professor Zhuang Shulin who studies the emerging contaminants and their effect on human health. He told us that currently many studies use chemical methods such as UV/H2O2 or bacteria to degrade EE2. Macroscopically, we need to put the degradation process in a social context, thinking about the market demand. In terms of detection, he affirmed our perspective of bioengineering, and reminded us that one characteristic of yeast experiment is inadequate sensitivity. Yeasts are not as sensitive as bacteria. He suggested that we could adopt the method of mass spectrometry detection.
Professor Zhuang Shulin
We also consulted with Professor Zhuang, who is studying the effects of new pollutants and human health. He told us that many studies currently use chemical methods such as UV/H2O2 or bacteria to degrade EE2, but the macro explanation needs to be carried out from many aspects. consider. In terms of detection, he affirmed our research from the perspective of environmental bioengineering, and reminded us that one of the characteristics of yeast experiments is that the sensitivity is not high enough, not as sensitive as cells, and suggested that we can use mass spectrometry detection methods.
OUC-China and the New Pollutants Alliance
In 2021 China iGEM Online Meetup, we knew that OUC-China uses Escherichia coli as the base organism in their project to degrade antibiotics in water bodies. The same goal of dealing with new pollutants and the similar project background made us very happy. Feeling extremely lucky, we talked online in August and shared our ideas, concepts and difficulties we met. We found that we have a lot in common in project design and human practice. We shared some views on each other's projects and decided to keep in touch. In September, we formed the New Pollutant Alliance with DUT-China, SJTU-Biox-Shanghai, NFLS-China and OUC-China to share our projects and put forward some ideas for future practical activities, including holding academic salons, co-writing legal plans and so on. In October, the New Pollutants Alliance co-organized a workshop. We invited teachers in the field of synthetic biology, ecotoxicology, and companies in the field of rapid inspection, along with college students who have legal backgrounds to share ideas and discuss. We hope that more people can know the concept of new pollutants, and we also hope to gather strength in the way of exploring solutions to new pollutants from multiple dimensions. Our meeting process was recorded and posted on social platforms. We also created a wiki together.
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