iGEM Team Calgary Coming Soon!

Governments and private enterprises alike are gearing up for travel across the Solar System. Plans to colonize the solar system are underway, with Elon Musk spearheading the initiative to have a Mars colony by 2030. In a parallel vein, NASA is planning a manned exploratory mission to Mars as soon as the 2030s (and several other space agencies have similar plans and timelines for their own respective Mars explorations). This exciting time in our history nonetheless comes with the challenges of long-term space travel. Two specific issues which make frequent space missions economically and ecologically challenging are the high cost of shipping materials up to space , and how to sustainably manage the waste that is produced on a spaceship.

This year, our project involves using genetically engineered E.coli to turn human waste into bioplastics. We envision our project as a start-to-finish integrated system which can be used in space to generate items useful to the astronauts who will be undertaking early Mars missions. This solves the problem of waste management, since it essentially upcycles the solid human waste into a usable product, and it will likely reduce the cost of space travel, as fewer materials would have to be shipped up to space