Supporting our next generation of scientists
(L-R: Luke Rees, Naomi Cooper, Claudia White, Joachim Larson and Ella Stephens).
In 2022 Samsara Eco sponsored the University of Newcastle Australian SynBio Challenge team.
The challenge is a wonderful, not-for-profit initiative to create a framework through which student teams and their mentors in academia and industry can apply synthetic biology principles to tackle real-world problems.
The undergraduate students are local to the city of Newcastle - an area known as the largest exporter of coal in the world.
The team spent the year studying ways to degrade benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, collectively known as BTEX which is commonly found in fossil fuels including coal, oil and natural gas.
We’re exposed to small amounts of BTEX in our everyday lives from breathing contaminated air, particularly in areas of heavy motor vehicle traffic, petrol stations, and through cigarette smoke. However accidental spills, decommissioned facilities or fuel storage leaks can lead to higher exposure with current removal strategies damaging for the environment.
Newcastle team 2022 promo video.
The team researched several different bacteria to find the most efficient enzymes that can degrade BTEX, in hopes this research will be a tool in the removal of BTEX that have contaminated areas in the environment.
Naiomi Copper, one of the student members and social media manager, took up this challenge “because I’m very interested in all things science and this was a perfect opportunity to develop more skills and connections - so of course I’m going to take that opportunity! Also the people are lovely and it’s a good way to make some friends.”
The team had a strong outreach program; they performed public opinion surveys on the understanding of BTEX contamination, and produced podcast episodes with their first episode interviewing Paul Riley, our CEO, and Rosie Georgelin, a PhD student with Samsara Eco.
The Newcastle undergraduate team found "It was really great to have a biotech start-up team as a sponsor and get guidance from people with experience in the field.”
“We're obviously quite interested in enzymatic degradation and industry translation so talking about how this works in the real world was super exciting!”
Team in their lab at University of Newcastle.
“Seeing Samsara Eco's success is also super encouraging and inspiring to us as young scientists."
We at Samsara Eco hope to foster and assist more with future opportunities such as this to help early-career scientists get a leg-up in the biotechnology industry.
Author: Samantha Wheeler