This year the team Purdue is looking at phosphorus contamination in water sources. To do so, they are engineering a strain of E. coli to express genes which uptake and store phosphorus so as to prevent toxic algal growth in lakes and streams. By focusing on the versatility of our housing for these bacteria they hope to provide a platform for further study and application in agriculture, the environment, and resource reclamation. The team's ultimate dream is to develop a self-contained unit (phosphorus reclamation module) capable of removing excess phosphorus from river, lake, agricultural, and wastewater. Decreasing the phosphorus load will prevent harmful algal blooms which affect water.

Project description