With an aim to bring the latest innovation— project Toggle pH at the upcoming International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) to be held at MIT, Boston, a team from Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), brings a solution to the global issue of Ocean Acidification. This environmental disaster is gradually decreasing the pH of oceans making them acidic.

The iGEM is an annual event and a competition on synthetic Biology and its inter-disciplinary fields. It is a platform where various teams from all over the world showcase their projects, learn from each other and also show their contribution to the scientific community and the general society.

The team — iGEM VIT —has been working on this issue from past six-month. The Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, selects five best teams with the most deserving projects across India in a competition called Indian Biological Engineering Competition (iBEC) and gives a grant of Rs 10 lakh per team for them to participate in iGEM.

For the very first time, a team from VIT, Vellore, bagged a place in the iBEC list of sponsored teams and won 10 lakhs to carry forward their project successfully. The iGEM VIT team, along with their primary investigator, Dr R Siva, professor and head, Department of Biotechnology at VIT, is working on developing a genetically engineered bacterium that can stabilise pH of the ocean. Once these modified bacteria are introduced into the ocean waters, it can neutralise this growing acidity and hence, reduce the oceans’ acidic nature and bring it back to its normal state.

This synthetically modified bacterium has the ability to absorb the acid causative agent which is free hydrogen ions and also the carbon dioxide present in the water. Theoretically, when these bacteria are let into the ocean waters, it can stabilise the local pH and hence has the capacity to normalise the pH  when done on a large scale.

The project can be used as an immediate, efficient, and economical way to provide a holistic and on-site solution to what is considered one of the major environmental problems of the modern day. Apart from the lab work, the team has taken the initiative to speak to local and international experts in the field and attended conferences to understand the problem in-depth. They have also taken the initiative to spread awareness.