We reached our goal!

Jun 25, 2019

312

We reached our goal! 
Today marks the halfway point of our campaign, and I am happy to announce we have reached our fundraising goal! Thank you so much to our backers for their support. We never would have imagined the generosity that we've received. 
Now that we've reached our fundraising goal, we've added some stretch goals which could buy us supplies that would improve our project even more including an improved plasmid design and materials for a more efficient PHA extraction. 
If you'd like to stay updated and hear more details on our project, we'd love to send you our newsletter. Just comment below an email or feel free to email me at khz7gy@virginia.edu if you don't want to post your email online. 
Again to our backers, thank you. 

Kobe, Aarati, and 5 others like this.

3 comments

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Ellen McCannBacker

Woot woot!!!

Jun 25, 20191

James CooperBacker

Newsletter please. jaycooperindio@hotmail.com

Jun 25, 20190

Katie ZhangResearcher

Added you to the list! Thanks for your enthusiasm and support :)

Jun 25, 20190

Richard CaseyBacker

Nice job

Jun 25, 20191

About This Project

Transforming Styrofoam waste into biodegradable plastic

University of Virginia

The primary objective of the project is to create an industrially-comparable method of producing PHA, a biodegradable plastic, from Styrofoam (polystyrene) waste. We hypothesize that a genetically modifying E. coli can convert styrene (monomerized polystyrene) to P3HB, a specific PHA, with just two plasmids. Our device will aim to reduce the 30% of plastic waste volume accounted for by polystyrene while simultaneously enabling cost-effective production of PHA.