Oct. 22 – “B. fruity “is a system that controls fruit ripening and can slow down or speed up the process in the transition from the field to the consumer. The idea came to students at the Cibio, the Center for Integrated Biology at the University of Trento. Thanks to the project, the students qualified for the World Cup final in Boston of the international competition for synthetic biology iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines competition), launched 10 years ago by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to promote ideas and skills among young people engaged in the world of synthetic biology and genetic engineering. The news of the Trentino success came from Lyon, where the group passed the European iGEM selections. The University of Trento was the only Italian team to be selected: of a total 60 participating teams, 22 passed, of which 11 in the “undergraduate” category, to which the Trentino group belongs. Their project is based on our daily selections of fresh fruits, which is generally based on colors and odors. In fact, the ripening process can be engineered by an environmentally friendly and healthy bacteria: “B. fruity.” In essence, “B. fruity ” is based on using a bacterium engineered to produce two volatile molecules, ethylene and methyl salicylate, which respectively accelerate or slow down the fruit ripening process. Thanks to the insertion of a genetic circuit in the bacterium, the production of one or the other molecule occurs after exposure to light or darkness.
