UCL iGEM 2012

Welcome to the UCL 2012 iGEM project.

This is a wiki-in-progress, keep checking back for updated content and project news.

Update: Read about Plastic Republic on the Smithsonian!

Plastic Republic - Constructing An Island From Microplastic Waste

Turning a Global Problem into a Valuable Resource: We Aim to Engineer Bacteria to Aggregate Tonnes of Microplastic Pollution into ‘Plastic Islands’, in order to Reclaim Plastic for Re-Use.

[http://www.sponsume.com/project/plastic-republic Take a look at our fundraising video and become a supporter of our project!]

After months of planning, we are now rallying to construct a ‘plastic island’ using the principles of synthetic biology. In so doing we hope to provide a solution to one of the world’s major environmental problems – the North Pacific Garbage Patch.

The North Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest of many garbage patches identified around the world. The waste from these patches enters the digestive systems of resident organisms, which are affected either by the physical size of the plastic, or its toxicity from adsorbing organic pollutants.

We saw the merits of using synthetic biology to overcome this problem, especially as conventional methods cannot target the majority of the waste - microplastics. By ‘synthesising’ a new strain of bacteria, capable of detecting, aggregating, and buoying these elusive microplastics, we aim to construct ‘Plastic Islands’ for

1. Removal and Re-use
2. Construction of a ‘Plastic Republic’

Please visit our Research page for more background and details on the above, and our Human Practice page for how we aim to encourage outside involvement in this project.

We’ll see you there for iGEM 2030.