Team:Toulouse/Project/Overviews

Fungal diseases lead to major economic losses all over the world. Some pathogens trigger trachemycosis by disturbing the vascular system of the plant. Canker is one of these infections especially affecting plane trees (Platanus sp.). Plane trees are widely present in Southern France and particularly along the famous Canal du Midi, participating to the site gorgeousness. Today, the only treatment consists in preventive tree-cutting which has a huge cost and implies significant ecological troubles. Facing this emergency, our team offers an innovative alternative originated from synthetic biology.

The aim of our project is to make an endophytic bacterium capable of detecting the pathogen, and targeting it in order to deliver different fungicides to save the tree from its invaders. Considering ecological and ethical matters, this project limits the spreading of our engineered bacterium in the environment.

Project context

Project context