Team Project descriptions – Mercury Bacter.

 In Amazon, mercury (Hg) is considered one of the major polluters of the region, because it is used in a in a precarious way at the gold washing sites. Due to this misuse, there are about 3,000 tons of mercury in Amazonian willing effluents contaminating humans and aquatic biodiversity. Their effects on health are: abdominal pain, diarrhea, osteoporosis, neurodegenerative diseases, kidney damage, psychological and psychomotor impairment.

Therefore, in order to mitigate environmental problems caused by mercury, the aim of this project is to use bacteria capable of bioremediate mercury, building a treatment system for effluent contaminated with this metal through synthetic biology, which is a system with easy manipulation and analysis, and present themselves as a low cost alternative to the market.