| SJTU-BioX-Shanghai

As we have developed the biological tool The MONCKIE Kings tackling with the heavy metal pollution in natural water body, we hope to meet some of the sustainable development goals proposed by the UN through our efforts.

The 17 sustainable development goals, also the SDGs, are the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by all UN member states in 2015. The SDGs, ranging from health and education to climate change and forest protection, cover the issues encountered in today’s development and call for the joint efforts of all developed and developing countries.

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN. In 1992, Agenda 21 was adopted at the Earth Summit as a comprehensive plan to set up a global partnership for sustainable development. In 2000, the UN member states adopted the Millennium Declaration to cope with extreme poverty in the world, leading to the elaboration of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Based on it, a set of SDGs were first proposed in 2012 and culminated in its core position in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in 2015. Since then, yearly SDG progress report has been presented to conclude the past-year efforts and build the framework for future work.

In fact, the 17 SDGs are in relation with each other. We evaluate our project comprehensively and decide to focus on the following goals: good health and well-being, clean water and sanitation, responsible consumption and production, partnerships for the goals.

Heavy metal ions post a threat to the health of human beings through disrupting cellular events including growth, proliferation, differentiation, damage-repairing processes and apoptosis. 1 A large number of researches have revealed the toxicity of the five common heavy metals including mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As).

Nowadays, exposure to these metals has been increased by industrial and anthropogenic activities and modern industrialization. So far, water and food contamination with heavy metal ions has been a concern for millions of people. In our project, we use OMVs to bind with heavy metal ions in the water body of natural environment, thus we improve the overall quality of the water in a specific area directly, guarantee the water safety for residents around and promote their health and well-being. Also, we remove the heavy metal ions in water, preventing the bioaccumulation process of heavy metal from the living creatures in water to human beings through the food chain and improving the safety of aquatic food. All these effects show our efforts towards this sustainable goal.

Heavy metal pollution is one of the main kinds of water pollution. Heavy metal ions cannot be degraded by microorganisms in the water completely and can exist in both compound and ion forms. The heavy metals often deposit in the sediment due to their low solubility. With the rapid development of heavy industries, the worsening heavy metal pollution in water body has been a serious environmental concern for people all over the world.

The SDG#6, clean water and sanitation, hopes to improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally by 2030. As a biological tool, our project focuses on the deep cleanness of heavy metals in natural water body. Using the heavy metal binding protein, we improve the sensitivity and efficiency of our system. Also, we manage to collect the OMVs secreted by the bacteria by nickel net thus we can separate the heavy metals from water body. We are making continuous efforts to enhance the function of our tool and hope it will be applied into wider use and achieve this goal better.

The achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs requires all hands on deck. It requires different sectors and actors working together in an integrated manner by pooling financial resources, knowledge and expertise. During the past year, we have made joint efforts to finish our project together with other teams, specialists and the government.

With other teams: We took part in the CCiC meeting in Hainan province at the beginning of July and discussed our project with other teams including Sichuan University, China Pharmaceutical University and Xi’an Jiaotong-liverpool University. Also, we got in touch with several other iGEM teams endeavoring on heavy metal pollution and set up the Heavy Metal Alliance. As an organizer, we held up an online meeting, exchanged our ideas and discussed about future collaboration.

• With specialists: We visited experts in the fields of bioremediation and environmental protection and introduced our design. We got various feedbacks on the wet-lab, hardware and modelling parts and make corresponding adjustments.

• With the government: We have a discussion with experts in Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences (SAES) which is in the charge of Shanghai government and gained professional suggestions on the whole project. Moreover, we made improvement according to these feedbacks.

In conclusion, we endeavored to catch pieces of advice from every person we had communicated with and make further researches. Also, we promoted our ideas towards primary school students through education part. We make our efforts to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

1 Balali-Mood, M., Naseri, K., Tahergorabi, Z., Khazdair, M. R. & Sadeghi, M. Toxic Mechanisms of Five Heavy Metals: Mercury, Lead, Chromium, Cadmium, and Arsenic. Front Pharmacol 12, 643972 (2021). https://doi.org:10.3389/fphar.2021.643972