Saving the bananas

Every time you go to the supermarket or to the local market to buy bananas you take for granted that there will be bananas readily available for you to enjoy and savour. However, banana plants are under threat and a world without bananas is more plausible than we all might imagine. Banana plants are threatened by Fusarium oxysporum, a soil pathogen that affects plants entering through its root system causing its death. Bananas, apart from being a delicious fruit, have economic importance in many tropical regions. These are the reasons why the iGEM team Wageningen 2014 has designed and created BananaGuard, a genetic system in Pseudomonas putida which is able to detect the presence of Fusarium in the soil and produce a combination of antifungals that will inhibit the growth of the pathogen. If you want to read more about the system and our work during the last six months, the iGEM team Wageningen 2014 invites you to continue surfing around our Wiki.

Achievements

• We documented and submited 27 parts to the iGEM Registry.


• We validated our own Biobrick parts: Fusaric acid promoter (Bba_K1493000) and Kill switch genes and promoters.(link to registry or page?)


• We characterized Fusaric acid dependent promoter by measuring GFP fluorescence at different fusaric acid concentrations and Kill switch genes by measuring RFP and GFP fluorescence at different rhammnose concentrations


• We considered safety in our project by implementing kill switch system and a system to prevent horizontal gene transfer.


• In collaboration with Synenergene we discussed many safety-concerning topics in synthetic biology and created techno-moral scenarios based on BananaGuard project.


• We improved the functions of existing BioBrick parts (BBa_K1493504, BBa_K1493501) by an extensive characterization of two promoters in the registry.


• We successfully collaborated with TU_Delft-Leiden iGEM from the Netherlands by quantifying the modified biofilm, formed in E.coli (see collaboration).


• We organized a National conference where we invited Dutch iGEM teams and anticipated a collaboration with the Dutch Institute of Health and Environment (RIVM). In September a symposium and a panel session was organized to inform government officials about the risks and possibilities of synthetic biology, sparking the public discussion about the use of synthetic biology (see policy).


• To spread a word about our research and to improve the product application, we interviewed and discussed our project with the leading banana plant scientists at Wageningen University, contacted banana engineer from Canarian islands, stakeholder from Philippines and talked to consumers whose everyday diet includes bananas (see interview).

Sponsors