Welcome to Team RPI_TROY_NY 2017!
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Project Description
Sophorolipids are a yeast-derived (Starmerella bombicola), non-toxic and biodegradable alternative to conventional petroleum-derived surfactants and detergents. Currently, the main barrier to commercial production is the cost of isolating and refining sophorolipids of useful chain length. Sophorolipid production competes with the beta-oxidation pathway in yeast for fatty acid substrates, thus lowering yield and producing a mixture of products. The enzyme MFE-2 is a critical component of the beta oxidation pathway. Through genetic engineering, we will selectively repress active domains of this enzyme with the intent of increasing the yield of sophorolipid product. By employing a repression technique rather than a full knockout of the gene, the stress on the yeast metabolism will be reduced.
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How our project will be helpful?
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Why did we choose this project?
All over the world, pollution is a huge problem. People are so reckless and unconcious about pollution and recycling, precautions of governments are usually insufficient. For example, Americans generate abo¬ut 210 million tons (231 million short tons) of trash, or solid waste, each year. Most of this trash (57 percent) gets placed in municipal landfills. About 56 million tons (27 percent) is recovered through either recycling, (such as glass, paper products, plastic or metals) or through composting.
So we wanted to make people conscious of pollution and importance of recycling, also tried to give a solution for cleaning enviroment from this toxic waste because it is known that plastics contain toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) and PS oligomers.
References
Freudenrich,C., (2014) How Composting Works. Retrieved from
http://home.howstuffworks.com/composting.htm
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