Our Issue:
Excess nutrient loading in Utah Lake is causing increased eutrophication,
which leads to increased cyanobacterial blooms that produce toxins hazardous
to human, animal, and aquatic life. The excess nutrients are composed mostly
of nitrogen and phosphorous compounds that enter the lake primarily from
wastewater treatment plants, runoff fertilizer, and naturally occurring
within inorganic environmental resources.
Our Solution:
Reduce the nutrient load of wastewater entering the lake by engineering a
harmless organism to sequester phosphorus and convert nitrogenous compounds
to atmospheric nitrogen, which is biologically inert. We chose the microalgae
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as the chassis for the genetically engineered
machine. A second, long-term goal would be to turn the sequestered nutrients
into a marketable product.
