TWB supports the IGEM Toulouse 2024 team

TWB supports the BioMoon project, driven by a team of students from INSA Toulouse and Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier, which will be presented at iGem 2024 – Grand Jamboree: an international contest of synthetic biology, which will take place at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles from October 23 to 26, 2024. The students will present their project, which involves making agriculture possible on the Moon thanks to a bacterium that stimulates plant growth.

About the BioMoon project

The bacteria Pseudomonas fluorescens is the heart of the project since it is naturally beneficial to the development and health of plants, by making certain nutrients more accessible for instance. The students of the BioMoon team had the idea of improving this bacteria to turn it into a real biostimulant. As part of the project, Pseudomonas fluorescens will be optimized in four ways and in the following order:

  • Integration of new genes allowing the bacteria to use creatinine as a source of carbon and nitrogen (creatinine is a component of human urine not yet used during manned space missions, for which any organic resource is precious);
  • The increase of the production of bacterial biofilms to improve the low capacity of lunar soil to retain water;
  • Integration of genes allowing the bacteria to produce nitrates, the preferred source of nitrogen for plants;
  • Finally, since lunar soil induces many stresses for plants, the bacteria will be improved to neutralize toxic agents and regulate pH.

About iGEM 2024

iGEM is an international synthetic biology competition created by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 2004, which became a major event in the biotechnology world. In 2021, the INSA-UPS team from Toulouse won the competition with their project Elixio.

For this 21st edition, which will take place for the 3rd year running at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles after 16 editions in Boston and 2 virtual editions, the competition will welcome more than 7,000 participants grouped into 450 student teams (making it the biggest edition ever) will present innovative projects adressing current issues in different fields: food, health, environment, etc…

IGEM Grand Jamboree also features over 150 sessions and workshops with international players in the field of synthetic biology & numerous stands and pavilions for incubators, investors, accelerators, industry players…