Sustainability Challenge:

The challenge at hand is developing an extraction method to reduce the level of heavy metal pollution in water. Heavy metal toxicity is responsible for many health crises. It interferes with blood, bones, and the nervous system, resulting in anemia, osteoporosis, and cognitive defects. The true extent of damage is difficult to quantify due to the many adverse health effects, but lead poisoning alone accounts for half a million deaths a year and 9.3 million disabilities (WHO). Smelters have historically been strong contributors to heavy metal pollution in the environment, and their cleanup efforts have been extremely expensive.

How This Project Addresses the Sustainability Challenge:

We want to develop a sustainable synthetic biological solution to extract heavy metals from wastewater. Our goal is to engineer E. coli to extract lead and arsenic from wastewater with target proteins, and construct a biofilm-based filter. The use of biotechnology has been increasingly popular and commonly used due to its sustainability and more cost efficient aspects. Engineering bacteria, such as E. coli, with the target proteins and designing them in a way to extract heavy metals avoids releasing more toxic and inorganic compounds back into the environment. Most E. coli are actually harmless and found in the human intestinal tract. They are the most common organism engineered in labs and can be easily manipulated with well documented details and extensive reference literature. We are currently working on extracting arsenic and lead from water because we identified that abnormally high concentrations of these heavy metals are pervasive in the environment and have the potential to cause serious acute and chronic diseases such as pulmonary disease and cardiovascular disease. Compared to current in-use remediation procedures that involve excavating and replacing wastewater and polluted soil, our solution, by addressing this problem at its source, will be much more cost-effective and efficient in preventing heavy metals from impacting the environment, benefitting both the smelters and the people affected. For example, by collaborating with Teck Resources, a smelter upstream of many cities along the Columbia River, to treat heavy metal pollution at its source, our solution has the potential to benefit large populations of people in Eastern Washington.

Preliminary Installation:

All experimental research will be conducted in our laboratory in the UW Biochemistry Department. Though we suspect lead and arsenic to be the primary contributors to heavy metal pollution in waters, we don’t know for certain that UW/Lake Washington/Puget Sound is solely affected by these specific metals and to what extent these waters are polluted. Thus, we would need to execute a feasibility study to determine how to best suit the needs of the Pacific Northwest. Once we know what specifically needs to be improved, we can swiftly modify our synthesized proteins to extract harmful agents in local waters. Currently, our human practices team has conducted a preliminary extensive literature review, and have found studies that highlight heavy metal pollution in bodies of water bordering the UW, including Lake Union, Shilshole Bay, and the strait of water that connects them. Additionally, sites like Everett, Tacoma, and Northport have high concentrations of heavy metals that exceed safety limits set by the Washington Department of Ecology. With Lake Washington and Lake Union being in such close proximity to our research base, UW will be a great starting point for preliminary installation in terms of a testing site for our biofilm-based filter. Areas located around smelters such as Everett affected by heavy metal polluted wastewater and contaminated soils that pose significant risks to human and wildlife health can be prioritized following successful results at UW.

From our research, we believe that although the UW campus itself has a lower concentration of heavy metals compared to manufacturing sites, we can still produce significant results by focusing on bodies of water proximal to the UW with industrial and shipping activity, such as Lake Union and other nearby areas, such as the UW’s Union Bay Natural Area. Taking into account UW’s environmental sustainability and conservation goals, reliance on waterways, and how many UW departments conduct health and ecological research in local Seattle waters, we envision our project to have an immediate impact on the UW community. After establishing that our product indeed makes a difference, we can expand to other areas outside of UW, such as Northport, Everett, and Tacoma, that are affected with chronic and acute debilitating diseases.

Out of the total amount we are requesting from CSF to fund our project, we expect nearly 100% of the funds to be allocated to research. As for implementation costs, we plan on using our existing funds to purchase necessary testing equipment. Since the physical implementation of this restoration project is mainly driven through student efforts and volunteers, the labor and high overhead costs can be largely omitted from the implementation costs of our project. The remaining cost of implementation can be partially attributed to monitoring the levels of heavy metal pollution using analytical services provided by the College of Forest Resources to analyze and ensure the efficacy of our product. Each test costs $14, so testing would cost $700 for 50 tests total, with multiple water analyses before and after our product installation. More details in regards to how we will utilize funds can be found in our budget document.