iMEAN Supports the BioMoon Project and Attends the iGEM 2024 Grand Jamboree
iMEAN is proud to sponsor the innovative BioMoon project, led by the iGEM Toulouse Team, which consists of seven students from INSA Toulouse and one student from the University of Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier. At the upcoming iGEM 2024 Grand Jamboree, held from October 23 to 26, 2024, at Paris Porte de Versailles, the team will present their groundbreaking work on enabling agriculture on the Moon using a plant growth-promoting bacterium.
This prestigious event will gather around 5,000 attendees from over 50 countries, with 400 teams expected to compete, making it a truly global platform for cutting-edge synthetic biology innovations.
BioMoon Project
The BioMoon project is a forward-thinking initiative aimed at contributing to the future establishment of permanent Moon bases. One of the key challenges in human space exploration is ensuring sustainable food production using in-situ resources. The iGEM Toulouse team proposes an innovative approach to cultivating fruits and vegetables on lunar regolith, the loose rock and dust that forms the Moon’s surface. Since regolith presents significant challenges for plant growth, the team has engineered the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens using synthetic biology. This bacterium, known for its plant-stimulating properties, has been enhanced with several critical features to overcome these challenges:
- Recycling creatinine, a human waste product, as a source of carbon and nitrogen.
- Promoting biofilm formation to improve the water retention capacity of the lunar soil.
- Producing nitrates, essential nutrients for plant growth.
- Neutralizing toxic substances present in the lunar regolith.
The project’s ambition is to make sustainable lunar agriculture a reality, contributing to future space missions and exploration efforts. One of the key takeaways from the BioMoon project is the value of integrating biomodelling strategies to optimize such complex biological systems.
Damien Michelon, Business Developer at iMEAN, will be attending the iGEM 2024 Grand Jamboree to support the iGEM Toulouse Team in this final stretch. iMEAN congratulates them on their fantastic work and wish them the best of luck in Paris!
About the iGEM Competition
The iGEM competition originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2003, when professors Tom Knight and Drew Endy introduced a course in synthetic biology to empower students to design and engineer biological systems. Early successes in engineering new metabolic pathways in bacteria led to the first official iGEM competition in 2004, featuring five teams from U.S. universities. By 2005, iGEM expanded globally, providing a platform for teams worldwide to collaborate, innovate, and address real-world challenges through synthetic biology.
Today, iGEM has become a premier global platform for young scientists to design and engineer biological systems that address real-world challenges. It promotes interdisciplinary collaboration, creativity, and a strong focus on ethics and safety in biotechnology, inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers.
