Water pollution has been one of the most pressing problems to solve in the last decade worldwide, due to the exponential growth of the food, textile, leather, mining and pharmaceutical industry and the residues that they leave behind. The need to dispose of dangerous chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other pollutants, has created a toxic environment in water bodies making it a threatening problem in many parts of Mexico. Likewise organisms living in these affected areas are in danger of becoming extinct. This problem is also a health risk for communities near to polluted sites (Otazo-Sánchez et al., 2020).
Water is known to be the “universal solvent”, as its polar nature gives it the ability to form hydrogen bonds with other molecules. These forces facilitate the dilution of different substances, including pollutants. That is why many contaminants have the capacity of changing water quality just like chemicals, human waste, industrial waste, the elevation of its temperature, since it decreases the oxygen levels in its composition, deforestation and pesticides. While water has a self-cleaning system when contaminant concentration exceeds certain limits, this process is not sufficient to revert the affectations (Yang et al., 2019). The World Health Organization (WHO) defines contaminated water as water that undergoes changes in its composition until it becomes unusable.
According to the National Institute of Public Health (INSP), approximately 842,000 low and middle class Mexicans die every year from unsafe water, and poor sanitation in water treatments. In 2019, 6.58 million incidents cases were reported and 99 million prevalent cases of diarrheal disease. For children under the age of 5 with disability adjusted life years (DALYs) the figures were 45.5 million (WHO, 2022).
The interaction of Ery-K and AtPCS with their substrates erythromycin and cadmium, respectively, will trigger conformational changes of enzyme structure and it will generate a detectable FRET signal from the chromophores in the system.
To know the key players that will help solve the problem, we need to understand how the control of bodies of water is managed in Mexico. All water bodies are considered property of the nation, therefore, only government organizations are responsible for protecting the waters by implementing laws and deciding who is capable of helping.
Our team decided to focus specifically on heavy metals and pharmaceutical contaminants, particularly erythromycin and cadmium, which gives us an initial purpose and direction to start from.These gives us an examples of what the FRET system is capable of, since they are present in many contaminated bodies of water.
In 2010, the United Nation General Assembly declared “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights” (UN, 2010). Similarly, the UN's 2030 agenda gives a specific goal for countries around the world to reduce pollution in the environment. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), give an idea of what needs to be done, in this case, our team focuses on the 6th SDGs; clean water and sanitation.
Donations from our sponsors have made research possible for the development of a biosensor that will meet market needs. Some local businesses that have made donations to help improve the development are La Gran Lucha, Corporativo Nugar, Tequila Doña Petra and FEMSA. Other international companies from other parts of the world have granted us aid; SnapGene has been invaluable to our scientific advances. Additionally, the team also worked hard to win The FEMSA scholarship to fund different aspects of the project.
2022 | |
---|---|
La Gran Lucha | $40,350 MXN |
Corporativo Nugar | $20,000 MXN |
Tequila Doña Petra | $16,000 MXN |
SnapGene | 6 licenses |
Tecnológico de Monterrey | $8,500 USD + equipment used |
FEMSA | $200,000 MXN scholarship |
2023 | |
---|---|
La Gran Lucha | $40,000 MXN |
SnapGene | 14 licenses |
PROMEGA | $2,500 USD in products |
Tecnológico de Monterrey | $10,700 USD + equipment used |
All of this helps us fund the majority of our materials, making it a product that is sustainable and available for the companies that will be able to use it in the future. The FRET-based system is a long-term solution, making our main objective helping our environment and promoting long-term health.
Business incubation experts from Tecnológico de Monterrey campus Guadalajara pointed out our project needs to collaborate with the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), as they are responsible for guaranteeing the high quality of water bodies in Mexico, including the Santiago River in Jalisco. In addition, they provided us with relevant guidance for the strengthening of our entrepreneurship, such as intellectual property protection, cost breakdown of our product and new potential stakeholders. This information will let us know how our product will impact the communities around the polluted waters quantitatively.
We had the opportunity to have a meeting with Heineken Mexico executives, where we presented our project and achievements at the moment. They attentively reviewed our presentation and gave us assertive feedback and valuable recommendations regarding our entrepreneurship efforts. Their insights revolved around delimiting our market segmentation, knowing our competitors and how the final product will be delivered to our customers.
The Eugenio Garza Lagüera Institute of Entrepreneurship awarded our team with the Stella Orion Scholarship, which not only catalyzed the beginning of our entrepreneurship project but also helped us gain knowledge of how to continue the development of our final product.