Technical Bugs: Microbes Re-Invented

Plastic waste is an abundant and pervasive pollutant, generated at staggering quantities across the globe. Remarkably, microbes have already developed their own biological tools for degrading and ‘eating’ these materials. This talk will describe how we harnessed some of these tools to build and deploy designer microbes capable of converting plastic bottles into the flavour chemical vanillin, the chemical responsible for the sweet smell of vanilla. If properly managed, could waste plastic one day replace fossil fuels as a feedstock for chemical synthesis?

Trypanosomes are single-cell parasites, living in the bloodstream and cells of humans or other mammals. They cause serious diseases, such as Leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness, and others. These parasites have a distinguishing feature: a bizarre structure called a kinetoplast, which is a form of DNA formed by thousands of rings, similar to medieval chainmail. Learn how these structures have puzzled biologists and inspired physicists, who are now using the kinetoplast as a model for new materials and technologies.