From 2014hs.igem.org
Welcome!
We are the CSW Proteens!
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PlantiFreeze
Annually, about 5% to 15% of agricultural produce is lost due to frost. The formation of ice damages plants by rupturing cells and also through dehydration as water molecules are drawn out of the tissue. Current solutions to this problem - such as using heat or covering crops with protective material - are cumbersome, costly, and not fully preventative. Synthetic antifreeze chemicals have not been proven to work. Even if they did, they would be need to be applied repeatedly, at great cost, and may also leave residues in the environment.
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Solution
The project undertaken by the Cambridge School of Weston (CSW) 2014 iGEM team aims to design a synthetic biology solution to this problem by building upon the work of the 2009 Utah State team that developed a protein secretion mechanism and that of the 2011 Yale team which synthesized an “antifreeze” protein (RiAFP) isolated from a cold-tolerant beetle called Rhagium inquisitor. This is the most potent antifreeze protein so far studied. Our device (Plantifreeze) is designed to mitigate crop damage caused by ice crystal formation on the plant surface. Plantifreeze is a dual plasmid system. Read more about our project.
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