NEOMINEX: MICRO-ORGANISMS TO RECOVER METALS

'We are a team of passionate students who are dedicated to improving human lives through synthetic biology'. Jena Amand, captain of the KU Leuven iGEM Team, sets the bar high: we are going to put bacteria to work extracting and recovering metals from wastewater. The ultimate goal: having a long-lasting sustainable impact to benefit society and the environment.

iGEM or in full 'International Genetically Engineered Machine' is a prestigious international competition held annually in Paris. More than 400 student teams from around the world spend almost a year working on an application in which they use synthetic biology to tackle a concrete societal problem. The multidisciplinary nature of the competition requires students from different faculties and disciplines to work together. This year's KU Leuven team consists of 14 students from the faculties of Science, Economics & Business, Bioscience Engineering, Pharmacy and Engineering Technology, making iGEM by far the most heterogeneous team within Technovation Hub, the incubator of innovative entrepreneurship in the Science, Engineering and Technology Group. In addition to being multidisciplinary, the team is international, with members of 14 different nationalities. “Interdisciplinary research is very important for us”, Jena explains. “Collaborating over different fields and cultural backgrounds, allows us to truly achieve something new and innovative, because everyone has their own point of view and knowledge to contribute.” “Joining iGEM presupposes not only a passion for science and research, but also distinct social skills”, affirms Jena. “You need to be able to collaborate smoothly internally and with industrial partners, local communities and other teams.”

Sustainability

Jena is a master's student in Physics with an outspoken entrepreneurial mindset and sense of adventure. She considers the iGEM competition as a valuable opportunity to broaden her expertise and skills while making a meaningful contribution to society. Together with her team, she will spend the next few months specializing in the nascent field of biomining “Under the name of biomining are applications in which micro-organisms are used to extract metals of economic value”, Jena explains. “It can also include techniques for cleaning sites contaminated by metals.” “This year our project is called NeoMineX and we will focus on extracting metals from wastewater” Jena continued. “Current extraction techniques to decontaminate wastewater cannot reach sufficiently low concentrations of metals. At the same time regulations are becoming stricter because we are more aware of the health and ecological impacts of specific metals contaminating the environment. Therefore, new techniques to extract those metals and decontaminate the water are needed.”

“But this is not the only problem we will solve. Metals are increasingly needed in daily life especially with current and developing technologies such as smartphones and clean energy production technologies. Yet 38 metals are classified as critical materials in Europe according to the last study on critical materials conducted by the European Commission.” Jena says, “With our technology we will be able to reuse those metals, contributing to a circular economy.”

Inclusivity

“But we do more than only science” Jena says, “we are very passionate about our inclusivity project as well. We believe science is for everyone, meaning two things: first, we want science to be accessible for everyone. You don't have to be a scientist to know about the world around you and how science and synthetic biology can improve our lives. We want to bring science to the broad public and aim to overcome any hurdles people may experience to interact with science.”

“Our second pillar of inclusivity is representation in science”, says Jena. “For young people, building a career in science is a long and arduous way, even more so when you do not seem to have any role models whom you can relate to. We want to show that people of all genders and backgrounds are just as well qualified to become scientists as everybody else. One of our initiatives involves making an interview series on gender representation in science which will be posted on our social media channels.”

An ambitious project like iGEM requires a well-oiled organization, “We have divided the work into seven sub teams”, says Jena. “The Dry Lab and Wet Lab develop the actual project. Finance handles contracts and accounting. Outreach creates workshops for schools, local communities, and events as well as other projects to inform a broad public about synthetic biology. Human Integrated Practices engages with industry and other stakeholders. Social media does science communication and design, and Wiki takes care of web development to create our teams wiki page which together with the presentation video will be the main deliverables for the competition.”

Yves Persoons

Support the NeoMineX project: www.gofundme.com/f/igemkuleuven