For the hypothetical designed organism assignment, we had to come up with either a mutant or enzyme that could solve a certain problem we had in mind. The resources we had, other than the knowledge we gained during class, were the iGem website and any scientific papers we wanted to reference.
Nuria told me to use my creative skills to compliment the task at hand. I chose to tackle the topic of plastic waste by wondering how to break down plastics through enzymes and fungi. I read a few articles and papers on PETase, MHETase and Leaf-branch compost cutinase, which I decided to display in a more "user-friendly" way by creating a poster and translating the information into simpler, every day terms. I could imagine it being a poster or flyer for a group of scientists presenting their work to everyday people at a fair or festival.
Bio & Agri Zero poster: enzyme breaking down plastic.
In addition to that, I created an interactive project using TouchDesigner where the user can click on a circle (the enzyme) and control it to erase colourful particles (microplastics). The application for this could be a installation in CCCB or a game for children learning about plastic waste solutions. You can see various colours and effects in the videos below.
red particle system.
greyscale particle system.
dual tone particle system.
Scientific Paper summary
For the scientific paper, I chose to read and summarise a report on Upcycling and Catalytic degradation of plastic wastes. Here is a pdf containing both the summary and paper with my notes.
Bio & Agri Zero scientific paper summary.
Some of the contents of the paper (towards the end) were hard to grasp, as the authors used very technical terms to explain complex processes. I did some extra research and found a great video which explained some of those same concepts in a more condensed form, which aided me in understanding the process which was explained in the video. You can find the video
here.