Funds to identify dangerous drinking water

Imperial scientists have won a significant grant for research to identify drinking water contaminated with the parasite that causes the deadly disease Schistosomiasis - News

Scientists from Imperial's Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (CISBIO) have won a significant grant for research to identify drinking water contaminated with the parasite that causes the deadly disease Schistosomiasis.

They have been awarded a Grand Challenges Explorations grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which enables researchers to test unorthodox ideas that address persistent health and development challenges and show promise in tackling priority global health issues where solutions do not yet exist.

Professor Paul Freemont (Life Sciences), who leads the project with Professor Richard Kitney (Bioengineering), Dr Tom Ellis and Dr Geoff Baldwin, said: "By using synthetic biology approaches we believe that we can design and re-engineer a bacteria that will be able to detect specific parasite proteases and change colour appropriately. We hope to take the proof-of-concept ideas initiated by last year's Imperial undergraduate iGEM team and turn them into reality.