Team:UCSC/Description

Project Description

UCSC's 2017 iGEM team of 15 motivated interdisciplinary undergraduate students inlcuding Biomolecular Engineers, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biologists, Biochemists, Chemical Engineers. Our team recognized how global malnutrition amplifies problems for many low income regions; causing economic burden as well as diseases like blindness, disabilities, and anemia. In hopes to address these crippling medical issues, we are creating a decentralized, self-sustaining biological source of nutrition that could be grown anywhere in the world. Spirulina is a fast growing, nutrient dense cyanobacteria which is already utilized for nutritional supplementation all over the world. The goal for our team is to optimize Spirulina to make it more accessible and fill the nutritional gaps to make it an effective and complete vitamin. This reflects our ultimate goal: To deliver nutrition to underdeveloped regions.