Overview
The KhanLabSchool iGEM Team was established in September 2023. From the outset, we have prioritized ethics and human practices in our work, even as we worked towards establishing lab access.
Three fundamental core values that were our guiding principles include:
- Conservation. Conservation is the value that encourages preservation and repair of the environment around us. Our project is conservation-minded, as removing methane from the environment is crucial to combating climate change.
- Education.
- Education is central to our project, as we deeply believe in providing accessible learning opportunities that engage students in solutions to real-world problems. Our iGEM team, the only one in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been dedicated to fostering education both within our team, our school, and the broader community.
- Recognizing the need for a strong foundation in biology, we developed a 10-week synthetic biology course to equip our members with the necessary knowledge and skills for iGEM lab work. This course was so successful that even students from outside our team joined to participate.
- To share our passion for synthetic biology with a younger generation, we conducted outreach activities at the Khan Lab School. We presented to 5th and 6th graders, engaging them in a hands-on experiment swabbing different objects and areas of the classroom, and then using petri dishes to cultivate bacteria.
- We held a community meeting at our high school (required of all high school students at KLS) to present iGEM, our project, and to host a discussion about ethics of genetic engineering.
- Affordability. As high school students that have faced difficulty with just finding access to a lab, we believe strongly in the values of affordability and access. We also believe that affordability is a key factor in the success of our product. By prioritizing cost-effective solutions, we hope to make it more accessible to a wider range of customers.
Project Overview
We decided to focus on the release of methane from landfills in our project. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas (around 86 times more potent than CO2, the leading greenhouse gas [1]). Landfills alone release around 16% of all methane emissions, with methane being around 11% of all greenhouse gas emissions.[1] The United States leads in methane emissions in the world and many Californians support the idea of reducing methane emission [1]. In addition to this, the San Francisco Bay Area, where we are based out of, has 11 active landfills and about 50 closed landfills.[2] Recent research suggests that levels of methane in the Bay Area may actually be double previous estimates, bringing the focus of our project closer to home for us.[3]
Jon Freedman, Environmental Manager at Newby Island Landfill
To better understand the potential impact and implementation of our project, we visited the Newby Island landfill, a local landfill in Milpitas, California, just a few miles away from the Khan Lab School. (https://www.republicservices.com/municipality/newby-island). Our goal was to observe an active landfill and gather feedback on how our project could be beneficial for facilities like Newby.
(Newly Landfill in Milpitas during our visit.)
During our visit, we met Jon Freedman, the on-site environmental manager, who provided us with a tour of the facilities. Mr. Freedman explained that the landfill operates multiple gas wells, pumps, and blowers to manage gas production. The main method for capturing methane is through flaring and converting it into less harmful CO2. While this approach is the most cost-effective, it is also the least environmentally friendly.
Mr. Freedman was receptive to exploring new methods of capturing methane, provided they are easy to implement and cost-effective. Some landfills try to mitigate this effect by supplying methane to local wastewater treatment plant to power their generators; however, cost has so far limited its implementation. The landfill is also in the early stages of considering using methane to fuel garbage trucks.
(A flare at the Newby Landfill)
Mr. Freedman noted that soil bacteria capable of removing methane from landfills would be extremely beneficial for their facility and others. He explained that by introducing these bacteria into the soil used in landfills, particularly in biofilters—which consist of a layer of soil and plant material on top of the landfill—they could contribute to methane capture.
Ben Tarbell, CEO and founder of EbbCarbon
We interviewed Ben Tarbell, the CEO and founder of EbbCarbon, a company which removes carbon dioxide from the ocean through electrochemistry. He gave us insight into how to approach mitigation of something like carbon dioxide, and he confirmed our knowledge about the effects of greenhouse gasses on climate change. He specifically verified the potency of methane in comparison to carbon dioxide. Mr. Tarbell also introduced us to his contact, Olya Izrak, CEO and founder of Frost Methane, who works in methane mitigation.
Representative of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the primary agency of the United States federal government responsible for the protection of human health and the environment. The EPA protects people and the environment from significant health risks, sponsors and conducts research, and develops and enforces environmental regulations. The EPA has a specific program aimed at management of methane from landfills (Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP)), that works cooperatively with industry stakeholders and waste officials to reduce or avoid methane emissions from landfills.
We met a representative from the EPA (who requested anonymity) after reaching out to learn more about methane emissions and their management.
They emphasized the importance of capturing methane from landfills because of methane’s detrimental impact on the environment. They discussed several ways captured methane can be utilized, including generating electricity, heating, or refining it into renewable natural gas (RNG) that can be fed into pipelines or used as vehicle fuel. They noted that while larger landfills are required to capture and flare methane, smaller landfills, often managed by local governments, face challenges in implementing these technologies due to limited resources. They also highlighted the growing trend of refining methane into RNG, driven by incentives such as California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
Based on this meeting, we hypothesize that our methodology could be particularly advantageous for smaller landfills that struggle to implement costly methane capture and flaring technologies. Our solution may offer a more cost-effective mechanism for methane capture that can be easily integrated into biofilters.
Effective Lab Practice
Leah McKinney, PhD candidate in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Leah McKinney is a molecular biology student who specializes in B. Subtilis, having conducted research at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is currently pursuing her doctorate in Dr. Jade Wang's lab(https://wanglab.bact.wisc.edu/). Leah validated our approach of using B. subtilis by educating our team about the bacterium and highlighting the ease of its genetic manipulation, along with the tools available in synthetic biology. She guided us in designing and troubleshooting our experiments and provided the Bacillus strains and plasmids that were crucial to our project.
Anthony Tan, Synthetic Biology Expert and STEM Education Advocate
Anthony Tan is a synthetic biology expert from the University of California, Berkeley. He trained our team on experimental protocols and assisted us in setting up our experiments at Counter Culture Labs (https://www.counterculturelabs.org/) in Oakland, California. Counter Culture Labs (CCL) aims to make synthetic biology accessible to underprivileged communities and biohackers.
When we began our iGEM project, Khan Lab School did not have the necessary lab equipment and safety gear for our work. As a result, we decided to create 3D-printed and more affordable versions of mini centrifuges and thermocyclers (see more in Contribution). However, our lab facilities were still inadequate for our planned activities, which is where CCL provided crucial support.
(Anthony Tan at Counter Culture Labs)
(Inside of Counter Culture Labs)
Smruti Vidwans, Ph.D. Geneticist and Bacillus Subtilis Expert
Dr. Vidwans is a geneticist, an entrepreneur and a product manager in digital technologies. She researched B. subtilis as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and earned her Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
She provided essential guidance on our strategy for using Bacillus subtilis to manage methane in landfills, assisted with experimental design, and helped troubleshoot lab experiments. She played a key role in brainstorming ideas and emphasized the importance of taking a holistic approach to solutions, rather than focusing solely on the details of individual experiments. For instance, it was crucial to consider not just feasibility of our but also the customers who would use our solution and how it could be implemented at their sites. Following her advice, we prioritized consulting with experts in the field to determine how and where our solution could be most effective.
Ethics and Community Impact
Olya Izrak, CEO of Frost Methane
We interviewed Olya Izrak, CEO and founder of Frost Methane, a company that provides methane management technology to neutralize methane-producing locations such as manure ponds, old coal mines and landfills. She told us that if successful, our bacteria could possibly be applied to these same types of methane-emitting sites. Ms. Irzak recommended that we make sure that the bacteria cannot survive outside of the targeted environments. As a result of this conversation, we have decided to implement a genetic kill switch which would effectively destroy our bacteria, preventing proliferation.
Dr. Robert Gould, Physicians for Social Responsibility(PSR)
To gain insight into the health effects of methane, as well as the importance of considering impacts of our technology, we interviewed Dr. Robert Gould. Dr. Gould, a retired pathologist and the president of San Francisco Bay’s Physicians for Social Responsibility, as well as a former national president of PSR, highlighted that his work had examined the health risks associated with gas stoves in homes. He explained that, in addition to contributing to ground-level ozone formation, burning methane also produces nitrous oxides, which can lead to further health issues. It turns out that landfill flares also generate both nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, underscoring the need for enhanced methane oxidation in landfills. Dr. Gould expressed interest and support for our project, noting its potential to also affect downstream nitrous oxide levels. He also encouraged us to consider the overall impact of our genetically modified bacteria in the broader context of methane reduction.
Khan Lab School High School Community Discussion
In addition to interviewing these two Ms. Irzak and Dr. Gould, we have had both informal and formal discussion sessions about genetic engineering at Khan Lab School. We hosted a Community Discussion at Khan Lab School High School (in which all 9th-12th graders are required to participate), to host a discussion about genetic engineering, misunderstandings about it, its potential for solving world problems, and the significant ethical considerations of genetically altering life.
