Empowering future innovators on their way to solving humanity's most pressing problems

  • Published: 21 November 2024
To advance innovation in synthetic biology we decided to help young and talented scientists from Lund University with their Methane RemOOver project. Their goal is the reduction of methane emissions from cows using a synthetically engineered microorganism. With this idea, they also participated in iGEM, an international competition where students use synthetic biology to solve real-world problems.

The iGEM Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing synthetic biology. It brings together people from more than 45 countries, creating a collaborative and cooperative community of scientists. Every year iGEM also organizes the world’s biggest synthetic biology competition, which ends with a Grand Jamboree where young researchers get to demonstrate their synthetic biology solutions for humanity's most pressing problems.

As you probably know, cattle expel significant amounts of methane, which has a severe climate change impact, and its concentration in the atmosphere is continuously rising, making it quite a pressing problem in the world. Therefore, we had the honor of sponsoring a student team from Lund University on their journey to the Grand Jamboree. Their project aims to decrease enteric methane production from cows by engineering a facultative anaerobe able to produce bromoform, a known methanogenesis inhibitor. By reducing ruminal methane production, they not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also increase the dietary energy available to be used for increased milk or protein production.

What makes this project unique is that so far there have been no attempts to combine the inhibitory potential of bromoform coupled with microorganisms able to grow chemolithoautotrophically, thereby additionally competing for methane precursors, CO2 and H2, and niches with the methanogens present in the rumen.

To do cloning, DNA construct amplification and verification of PCR fragments on agarose gels we supplied them with our Master Mixes FIREPol® Master Mix 2.5mM MgCl2 and FIREPol® Master Mix Ready to Load 2.5mM MgCl2, and 6x DNA Loading Dye Buffer Blue.

The Grand Jamboree took place at the end of October in Paris where the Methane RemOOver team won the gold medal and was nominated for the best climate crisis project. We are very proud of their achievement.

In addition to competing in the Grand Jamboree, the members of the team have also spent a lot of time educating people on this matter by doing workshops for schools, making an educational game and posting informative content on social media. You can find out more about their project here: https://2024.igem.wiki/lund/.