Plastic Eating Algae Project
Location
CoLab, COM 148
Start Date
30-4-2026 9:30 AM
Document Type
Poster
Description
The central issue we are trying to solve through our research project is the problem of plastic pollution and how it affects our ecosystem. Plastic has become so present in our ecosystems that we tend to forget it's there, but in reality, it is poisoning our wildlife and disrupting entire ecosystems. We are trying to fix this problem by introducing plastic-eating enzymes to our algae clones, Chlorella, through Agrobacterium transformation. After introducing the DNA, we cloned and then screened the algae that continued to grow to ensure that they had the DNA of the plastic-eating enzyme. We then went on to actually test to see if the algae was degrading plastic, which we compared to our control group of wild-type algae degradation of plastic. We had lots of clones that grew, and they contained the positive DNA samples. The impact of this research could lead us to actually introduce the plastic-eating algae into the world to help us reduce the amount of plastic pollution.
Image
Plastic Eating Algae Project
CoLab, COM 148
The central issue we are trying to solve through our research project is the problem of plastic pollution and how it affects our ecosystem. Plastic has become so present in our ecosystems that we tend to forget it's there, but in reality, it is poisoning our wildlife and disrupting entire ecosystems. We are trying to fix this problem by introducing plastic-eating enzymes to our algae clones, Chlorella, through Agrobacterium transformation. After introducing the DNA, we cloned and then screened the algae that continued to grow to ensure that they had the DNA of the plastic-eating enzyme. We then went on to actually test to see if the algae was degrading plastic, which we compared to our control group of wild-type algae degradation of plastic. We had lots of clones that grew, and they contained the positive DNA samples. The impact of this research could lead us to actually introduce the plastic-eating algae into the world to help us reduce the amount of plastic pollution.
Comments
The faculty mentor for this project was Heather Seitz.