Project Description

Precious metals are costly and the effects of mining are frequently undesirable. Sustainability and human well-being are matters all too often considered secondary to the politics of wealth and power.

At the same time platinum, from catalysts within our cars, literally crumbles away onto our road surfaces. Intermi-nably accumulating in the asphalt and perpetually seeping into the envi-ronment, this metal aggregation can be consi-dered a novel resource fount. Further, this man-made mine of heavy metals is literally outside our doorsteps!

The iGEM Team St Andrews are among the first to advance into the shaft of de novo research that is metal capture technology. Producing platinum-binding proteins in E. coli will provide a framework which can be modified to produce an extracellular membrane-bound binding site. This bond type can be geared towards a number of precious metals, creating a veritable library of resourcing. Indeed, road scavenging could be the spark in the ignition: driving twentieth century problems towards twenty-first century solutions.