Our project is inspired by the prevalent issue of indoor air formaldehyde pollution in newly renovated houses in Hong Kong.

We aim to develop a biological device capable of detecting formaldehyde levels without requiring specialized knowledge or equipment.

We used a synthetic biological approach to engineered E. coli strains with formaldehyde-inducible promoter pFrmR and the HxlR operon. Our objective was to compare the effectiveness of these components. Notably, we successfully demonstrated the functionality of the pFrmR construct, exhibiting a color change in the presence of formaldehyde.