Best Sustainable Development Impact

iGEM & The Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations proclaimed 17 goals for sustainable development in order to ensure a better and fair future for everyone on planet Earth [1].

As young people, we see big changes in society and we are the very first generation to realize the gravity of the climate crisis in our daily lives. We are more determined than ever to reach the SDGs to give our best as moral beings trying to make the Earth a better place for other organisms.
Scientific research is not independent of society and politics. For example, we realize that many Swiss people are sceptical towards the idea of genetically engineered organisms (GEOs), especially in food. However, when asked why, many people gave scientifically incorrect answers as to what a GEO actually is and which power it (allegedly) possesses. It is our duty to promote more education on an important topic like GEOs and to change society’s views in order to have a fact-based discussion instead of one which is relying on emotions.
In the following, we explain why our iGEM project BOOM V is a candidate for the Best Sustainable Development Impact and which sustainable development goals we target.

Promoting Independence

Our vesicles are easily produced in a basic lab, which would allow a decentralised production. Farmers wouldn’t be dependent on big transnational seed and pesticide conglomerates.

Ethical Treatment of Pests

Our engineered bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) induce the plants immune system preparing them for an attack instead of killing off pathogens. We don't kill any organisms.

Broad Applicability

OMVs can be used to treat different plant species against a variety of pathogens. This shifts the focus on the plant rather than on an individual pathogen, and could be more effective.

Eco-Friendly Product

We minimize the negative impact on the environment, biodiversity, and the consumer in contrast to synthetic pesticides because our OMVs are organic bacteria-derived products.

Increasing Fairness

We intend our OMVs’ use to be easy and cost-effective to allow its application in regions where farming is essential to survive. We must develop alternative solutions to protect crops for everyone.

Global Applicability

We can adjust to a country’s GEO regulations with two different application approaches, one of them even allowing the application in countries where the use of GEOs is banned.

Sustainable

The pathogen is no longer killed which would leave the resistant ones to become dominant in the population. This can be circumvented by not killing the pathogen but rather strengthening the plant.

Degradable Product

Our vesicles are easily degradable in contrast to synthetic pesticides. Synthetic pesticides stay in the soil for a long time and have severe impacts on biodiversity and water quality [4].

Why is our project a candidate?

“As soon as we see a pathogen, we shoot. That’s our way of handling problems. I don’t think that this attitude is sustainable; we need to change our mindset about handling pests in agriculture.”
Winemaker Christian Zündel from Beride, Ticino (Southern Switzerland) [2]

With our iGEM project BOOM V, we are working on something unprecedented and shockingly little researched: Bacteria-originated Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMVs). In our lab, we were able to show that our genetically engineered OMVs led to an activation in the plant's immune system. OMVs can help the plant defend itself. We used a natural mechanism - OMVs can trigger a plant’s immune response - and then modified this mechanism with the methods of synthetic biology to make this activation more efficient. More details on our methods can be found on our Engineering Success site.

If we know that plants are able to defend themselves after an application with OMVs, this has big consequences: Instead of focusing on synthetic pesticides to react to a pathogen attack, we can now act in advance. One potential application example is the case of powdery mildew, a fungal disease strongly reducing crop yields worldwide. We know that powdery mildew loves humid environments. After heavy rainfall, we could prepare our plants for the prospective fungal attack by spraying OMVs onto their leaves. Instead of only reacting to a certain pathogen, we change perspective and turn the problem upside down.

A global pathogen: leaf rust on corn leaves

One major problem of the use of synthetic pesticides are the environmental effects they cause. The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology reports about pesticide-caused water pollution in Switzerland [3]: "Water quality criteria [...] were exceeded in all five streams [analyzed]. [...] In the case of macroinvertebrates, sensitive species were simply not present at contaminated sites." In almost all Swiss soils in agricultural areas, even in the ones which are specially declared to be promoting biodiversity, pesticide residues are present [3]. One of the reasons for this may be that synthetic pesticides are chemical compounds which are not easily degradable and therefore stay in the soil for a long time. This is a problem, since first studies show that pesticide residues negatively impact the amount of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and thus affect the soil ecosystem. Another problem are residues from pesticides which are now forbidden in Switzerland due to their toxicity, e.g. the fungicides Epoxiconazole and Flusilazole [4].

And that’s not even the end of the story: There are thousands of fungicides, bacteriocides and other pesticides that are being used on millions of hectares of fertile soil. Even though we decided to ban certain dangerous and health-threatening pesticides in Switzerland, this isn’t the case in most countries. On the contrary: Worldwide pesticide use is steadily increasing [8]. And as we see in Switzerland, simply banning a pesticide doesn’t really solve the problem: Years later, the soil is still contaminated with pesticide residues and they are now suspected to stay there even longer than formerly assumed [4].

We want to develop an alternative to products from big transnational companies who don’t necessarily focus on ecological aspects but rather on financial wins. Swiss farmer Roberto Mozzini confirmed this trend in an interview with us: "[The price of pesticides] has gone up a lot, we notice that even if we use less: What we spend is increasing." [9]

Our global population is rising, we need to ensure food security for everyone and for this, we need to fight against the steadily increasing amount of pesticides we use. It is easier to control weeds because you can fall back on mechanical methods which have proven themselves in the past, whereas bacteria and fungi mostly need to be treated with synthetic pesticides [10].
And as we have seen with the Covid-19 pandemic, viruses or bacteria are able to adapt quickly and become resistant. In the future, we are expecting to face more and more threats from new emerging multi-resistant bacteria. We cannot just treat them by developing one specific pesticide for every single one of them. And we surely can’t fight them with a lawnmower or another mechanical instrument.

We think that the methods of synthetic biology which we use in our project are a great way – if not the only way – to develop new innovative products to face the pathogen challenge. We don’t pollute environments with artificial chemical compounds but rather make use of a system which already exists in nature and change its design in order to help us strengthen our plant’s immune system. Currently, we aren’t aware of another research branch which has the same power and potential to promote change in our agricultural methods as synthetic biology has.

Which sustainable development goals do we target?

With our project BOOM V, we want to contribute to a responsible and sustainable agriculture and thereby target two of the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations:

Goal 2: “End Hunger, Achieve Food Security and Improved Nutrition and Promote Sustainable Agriculture” [11]
Target 2.a: "Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries." [11]
Target 2.4: "By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality." [11]
Goal 15: "Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss." [12]

Currently, an estimated 800 Mio. people are undernourished [11]. We want to contribute to Goal 2 to end hunger which can be achieved by reducing our crop losses, so we need to fight pathogens. With the world population increasing, the agricultural sector needs to become more productive and it is of utmost importance that we develop new technologies to confront the ever-rising diversity of pathogens in our crops.

Our project identifies most with Target 2.a, since it is our intention to reduce the use of synthetic pesticides by promoting alternatives like OMVs and thereby protect crops from pathogens while also minimizing environmental impacts.
We believe our project can decrease the amount of fungicides and bactericides used in agriculture and thus lower the contamination of the soil, groundwater and life. We specifically intend our OMVs’ use to be easy and cost-effective to allow its application in regions where farming is essential to survive. According to climate conditions, local weather changes and knowledge about certain pathogens, an individualized application of OMVs on the cultivated plants is possible.

We also find Target 2.4 compliant with our project: We are implementing a resilience strategy in agriculture which will lower the dependency on classical synthetic pesticides as well as protecting the environment from contamination with pesticide residues: Our OMVs are quickly degradable and bacterial vesicles are naturally present in soils, whereas synthetic pesticides don’t just stay in the soil but additionally spread via rainfall and water cycles. By reducing the amount of synthetic pesticides used, we help maintain ecosystems which can be disturbed by pesticide residues (see also the essay “Why are we not producing more sustainably?” in our handbook).

This also complements Goal 15: The use of our OMVs promotes the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, regarding the fatal consequences of synthetic pesticide use.
It is of great importance to us that pesticide use is reduced to a minimum to ensure a more sustainable agriculture which is efficient and productive. The reduction of synthetic pesticide use leads to fewer damage to biodiversity. It also reduces the selection pressure for pathogens to outflank pesticides, since the pathogen now must adapt to the plant’s immune system, instead of simply adapting to an unchanging pesticide and therefore brings a halt to the race between pesticide and pathogen resistance.

Conclusion

With our project, we address the sustainable development goals 2 and 15 expressed by the United Nations. We want to contribute to a more sustainable and ethical way of dealing with pests in agriculture.

By using our product to protect their plants from pathogens, farmers wouldn’t be dependent on big transnational seed and pesticide conglomerates. Also, fewer synthetic pesticides would get into the environment: Our OMVs are able to help plants protect themselves and therefore make certain synthetic pesticides unnecessary.

We want to stress that our OMVs don’t require big labs to produce, are easy to use and are affordable for a broad worldwide application. Independent of specific plant variety, OMVs can help corn, wheat or rice and any other plant to activate their immune system in time to fend off an incoming pathogen attack.
Furthermore, we can adjust to a respective country’s GEO regulations: If GEOs are banned in agricultural use like it is the case in our home country Switzerland, we can extract OMVs in a lab and distribute them as a spray. The OMVs themselves aren’t genetically engineered organisms so they generally would not fall under a GEO ban.
In most countries however, GEO cultivation is standard and we could even release OMV-overproducing bacteria into the soil.

We believe that our project has the potential to be awarded for the best impact on sustainable development.

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[1] United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 3. October 2021
[2] An Interview with Christian Zündel by iGEM UZH 2021 in August 2021
[3] Excessive levels of plant protection products in small streams, published by Eawag - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Archive News from April 2019, accessed on 23. September 2021
[4] Widespread Occurrence of Pesticides in Organically Managed Agricultural Soils — The Ghost of a Conventional Agricultural Past?, by Judith Riedo, Felix E. Wettstein, Andrea Rösch, Chantal Herzog, Samiran Banerjee, Lucie Büchi, Raphaël Charles, Daniel Wächter, Fabrice Martin-Laurent, Thomas D. Bucheli, Florian Walder, and Marcel G. A. van der Heijden, Environmental Science & Technology, 2021, 55 (5), 2919-2928, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c06405, 27. September 2021
[5] Identification of the fungicide epoxiconazole by virtual screening and biological assessment as inhibitor of human 11β-hydroxylase and aldosterone synthase, by Akram M, Patt M, Kaserer T, Temml V, Waratchareeyakul W, Kratschmar DV, Haupenthal J, Hartmann RW, Odermatt A, Schuster D. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2019 Sep; 192:105358. doi: 10.1016/j.jsbmb.2019.04.007. Epub 2019 Apr 6. PMID: 30965118, accessed on 16. October 2021
[6] Computational Translation of Nonmammalian Species Data to Mammalian Species to Meet REACH and Next Generation Risk Assessment Needs, by Edward J. Perkins, Natàlia Garcia-Reyero, Chapter 7, Editor(s): Bruce A. Fowler, Computational Toxicology, Academic Press, 2013, pages 113-136, ISBN 9780123964618, accessed on 12. October 2021
[7] Zurückgezogene Wirkstoffe aus Anhang 1 der PSMV, Eidgenössisches Departement für Wirtschaft, Bildung und Forschung WBF, Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft BLW, Fachbereich Nachhaltiger Pflanzenschutz, Stand: 01.07.2021, p. 1
[8] Global situation of pesticide management in agriculture and public health, Geneva: World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. [2019]. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO., 27. September 2021
[9] Greenhouses, Growth, and G...Tomatoes: An Interview with Roberto Mozzini by iGEM UZH 2021, 3. October 2021
[10] Crop losses to pests, by OERKE, E. (2006), The Journal of Agricultural Science, 144(1), 31-43. doi:10.1017/S0021859605005708, accessed on 27. September 2021
[11] Goal 2 of the SDG, 27. September 2021
[12] Goal 15 of the SDG, 26. September 2021

Team:UZurich/Sustainable