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.

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