HumanPractices

Problem Overview and Our Human Practices Approach

After the UT Austin 2025 team decided to focus on targeting harmful algal blooms in Austin's Lady Bird Lake, we knew Human Practices would be vital in the development of our project, as our research would directly impact the local Austin community. One of our first challenges was understanding the mechanisms by which algal blooms are toxic, and to address this we began meeting with academic experts who helped us clarify the mechanisms of toxicity. These conversations shaped the foundation for constructing our biosensor. During this time, we also sought to reach out to community members to gain insight on the lived impact of Harmful Algal Blooms in Austin. This included businesses on the lake, local Austinites that frequent the lake, and experts on cyanobacteria and harmful algal blooms to better understand the issue. By combining expert knowledge with community perspectives, we refined our project to meet community needs while also being applicable to synthetic biology.

Figure 1. CyanoSense Human Practices Workflow

Figure 2. Project Stakeholders

Algal Bloom Community Outreach

Rowing Dock

We sought to reach out to multiple businesses that were located on Lady Bird Lake or whose business relied on the lake in some way. One of the first businesses we reached out to was Rowing Dock, which is a company that rents various water related services, like boats, kayaks, canoes, paddleboards, etc.¹ Rowing Dock is a very popular business in Austin, and many college students, local Austinites, and tourists frequent their rental company. In our conversation with Rowing Dock, they informed us that their business is impacted by the harmful algae in Lady Bird Lake, as it requires them to have pet owners bringing their pets on the water sign a pet waiver informing them of the harmful effects of the algae blooms on animals. While this may not be something that necessarily negatively impacts their business, it helped us understand the importance of mitigating the toxicity of algal blooms in Austin waters. Furthermore, it highlights the added liability and logistical challenges harmful algal blooms create for businesses. This perspective helped us recognize that algal blooms are not only an ecological or public health issue, but also an economic one, shaping how people and companies interact with the lake. Understanding this expanded our awareness of the problem and highlighted how a biosensor that monitors algal bloom toxicity could support local businesses by reducing liability risks, safeguarding customers and their pets, and promoting safer, more sustainable use of the lake.

Figure 3. CyanoSense Human Practices Team Visit to Rowing Dock

Capital Cruises

Another business we spoke with was Capital Cruises. Capital Cruises is a boat tour agency in Austin, best known for their bat-watching tours on Lady Bird Lake.² We spoke to Shannon Shaddock, the owner of Capital Cruises. Shannon is an Austin native and has been running the business for over 30 years. When asked how algal blooms have impacted his business over the years, Shannon explained that one of the biggest challenges he has faced is the impact of media coverage about toxic algae. He discussed how rentals of boats, canoes, kayaks, SUPs, and especially paddle boards decrease significantly whenever notifications about toxic algae are released. This is because patrons tend to avoid the water and likely choose to rent elsewhere due to the media coverage surrounding the algal blooms.

From this conversation, we learned how strongly public perception drives behavior and how harmful algal blooms affect businesses not only through ecological harm but also through fear and uncertainty. This broadened our perspective on HABs: they pose economic and reputational challenges for businesses that rely on the lake just as much as they pose health and environmental risks. For our team, this underscored that any solution we design must not only detect harmful algal blooms but also provide reliable, real-time, and transparent data. By ensuring our biosensor can clearly distinguish genuine health threats from situations where risk is minimal, we can help prevent unnecessary panic while still protecting public safety. In turn, this would build community trust in our technology and support local businesses like Capital Cruises by reducing the financial losses that follow precautionary avoidance.

Valerie Campbell

To expand our outreach efforts into the local Austin community, we reached out to Valerie Campbell, the founder and board president of the South Austin Creek Alliance (SACA). This organization focuses on the protection and preservation of several urban waterways in the Austin area. After learning about SACA and its advocacy efforts, we reached out to see how our iGEM team could present our research in a way that made a positive impact on environmental awareness. Ms. Campbell emphasized that our community engagement should be tailored to locals who frequent the lakes and rivers for recreational activities, which led us to focus our educational efforts on speaking directly with residents along Lady Bird Lake.

In addition, Ms. Campbell highlighted that Austin waterways are shaped not only by harmful algal blooms (HABs), but also by broader environmental pressures such as rising temperatures, pollution, eutrophication, and rapid urbanization. This broadened our perspective on the drivers of HABs and emphasized that the problem is deeply interconnected with both human activity and climate change. By incorporating these insights into our Human Practices, we began to frame our project as part of a larger conversation on environmental resilience. Although our biosensor specifically targets microcystins for degradation, it also serves as a step toward addressing these wider environmental effects by providing communities with reliable information about when waters are unsafe. With more accurate, real-time monitoring, residents and local businesses can make informed choices, and public discussions can shift from reactive warnings toward proactive environmental stewardship.

Academic Outreach

Dr. Brent Bellinger

As we sought guidance from different city departments such as Austin Water and Staryn Wagner, an environmental scientist for the City of Austin, we were redirected and encouraged to contact Dr. Brent Bellinger as the key point of contact for our project. Dr. Brent Bellinger is the lead reservoir ecologist for the city of Austin. He monitors the water quality in the city, algal and vertebrae species, works to address policy and management needs, and has published numerous papers regarding cyanobacteria in Lady Bird Lake. Dr. Brent Bellinger is also a limnologist that specializes in wetlands, source waters, and other water sites. His main goal in his career is to understand the human impact on our land and waterways and use that information to create positive changes and improvements to the water. We met with Dr. Bellinger twice throughout the duration of our project to receive feedback and insight on our project goals and methods.

In our first meeting with Dr. Bellinger, we received valuable feedback that guided the development of our project. While microcystins are a well-documented concern in Austin waters, Dr. Bellinger emphasized that another major threat in Lady Bird Lake is the cyanotoxin anatoxin-a, which is produced by harmful algal blooms. Anatoxin-a is a potent neurotoxin that can cause muscular paralysis and respiratory arrest at high levels of exposure, and it poses an additional risk when drinking water sources are contaminated or when the lake is agitated.³ From this discussion, we learned that focusing solely on microcystins would not be sufficient to address the broader scope of harmful algal bloom toxicity.

Although we initially focused on detecting Microcystis aeruginosa, Dr. Bellinger's feedback encouraged us to broaden our project goals. We began to think about designing a modular biosensor that could be expanded in the future to detect multiple toxins such as anatoxin-a in addition to microcystins. While we did not reach the stage of building modularity into our current construct, this shift in our project design was still important. It reframed our vision of the biosensor as not just a single-purpose tool, but as a platform with the potential to remain relevant as new toxins and threats emerge in Austin's waters. By integrating this perspective, we grounded our work in both present needs and future adaptability, strengthening the long-term impact of our design.

Dr. Bellinger also provided broader context on Austin's current mitigation strategies. He explained that the city has been using lanthanum-based clay treatments to bind phosphates in the sediment over a five-year period, which helps limit the nutrients available for cyanobacterial growth.⁴ While these treatments have been effective in reducing biomass, they are concluding this year, and monitoring efforts will continue to assess long-term effects on toxin levels. He also stressed the importance of watershed-level prevention, such as capturing rainfall and slowing runoff, to reduce nutrient inputs that fuel blooms.

Additionally, Dr. Bellinger highlighted that climate change and rising water temperatures are expected to worsen water quality over time by making conditions more favorable for algal blooms. He noted that while real-time monitoring systems are a growing need, current methods such as chlorophyll-a proxies can only detect algal biomass, not toxicity, and available rapid test kits have large margins of error. This conversation shifted our perspective on the urgency of our work: we recognized that sensitivity and specificity would be essential design priorities if our biosensor were to provide actionable information. It also underscored the importance of building a modular and adaptable platform that could remain relevant as bloom dynamics change under climate pressure. Ultimately, Dr. Bellinger's input reinforced our view of the sensor not as a stand-alone fix, but as a critical piece of a broader, long-term monitoring strategy to complement prevention and remediation efforts in Austin and other communities facing similar challenges.

Figure 4. iGEM Meeting with Dr. Brent Bellinger and Alex Lari

Dr. David Nobles

One of our first meetings was with Dr. David Nobles, the head of the Culture Collection of Algae at the University of Texas at Austin. One of the main goals of the Microcystin Production team was to successfully produce a large quantity of microcystin in the lab so that the Degradation and Biosensor team could use them for testing purposes. Early on in our project, we were unsure of which microcystin strains to use that would be most suitable for our lab and research. Furthermore, we had questions regarding the safety of handling these bacteria, and which assays to use to quantify microcystin production. Dr. Nobles pointed us to the M. aeruginosa, strain UTEX 3037 as a strain that has a well characterized genome and is known to produce copious amounts of microcystins,⁵ which aligned with our project goals. He also recommended the use of M. aeruginosa, strains UTEX B 2676 and UTEX B 2670 as our control strains, since both strains do not include the mcy, gene cluster. After conducting our own research regarding the suggested strains, we decided to follow through with Dr. Nobles' suggestion, and he kindly provided the strains for our use as they were available in his algal collection. Our team continued to work with these strains throughout the duration of our project.

Another large concern for our team was safety and handling when working with our algae, as Microcystins are characterized as a biosafety level 2 hazard.⁶ We asked Dr. Nobles about his familiarity with working with such organisms, and if he had any advice regarding our safety practices and handling. Dr. Nobles advised us to simply ensure we were wearing correct PPE gear at all times, and to wash our hands after every handling with the algae. He stressed to ensure that we were not ingesting the bacteria, as that is potential toxicity could occur. Our lab followed his recommendations and implemented them throughout the duration of our procedures and experiments.

Furthermore, our team knew that we would eventually need to utilize an assay to detect rates of microcystin production. In meeting with him, Dr. Nobles informed us that he himself was not familiar with assays for microcystin production in his lab. However, he initially recommended High Performance Liquid Chromatography, and he urged us to reach out to Lance Ford for access to lateral flow kits.

As the project progressed, the Microcystin Production team began to attempt to grow our M. Aeruginosa, strains in our lab. We followed the advice Dr. Nobles provided to achieve optimal growth conditions by preparing liquid cultures and plates in BG-11 media and placing them in a 25° incubator in low light. However, we saw very minimal and slow growth. Even after making modifications to our inoculation rate, little success was made in growing M. Aeruginosa. In light of this, Dr. Nobles kindly offered for us to use his lab space and equipment to assist us in growing our strains. Very quickly, our team began to see promising growth in the cultures that Dr. Nobles helped start and modify. Under his guidance, we modified our approach by continuously agitating the medium to promote growth and supplementing cultures with a sterile air filter and CO₂ pump. Ultimately, we were able to rectify our original problem of no algae growth with the help of Dr. Nobles and his insightful adjustments to our procedures and methods.

Figure 5. Cyanosense Meeting and Lab Tour with Dr. Nobles

Lance Ford

In the initial stages of our project, our team began exploring what assays might best support our different subgroups. Since we had limited prior knowledge about tools for detecting and quantifying cyanobacteria toxins, particularly microcystins, we reached out to Dr. Lance Ford, the CEO of Attogene Corporation, a local Austin-based biomanufacturing company focused on advancing global health and environmental sustainability. Dr. Ford welcomed us to Attogene's lab, where we toured their facilities and examined the range of assays they had developed for toxin detection. By seeing firsthand what was already on the market and learning how each assay functioned, we were able to refine our thinking about what would best serve our own system.

For example, the degradation subgroup was especially interested in whether assays could differentiate between the cyclic and linearized forms of microcystin-LR. Dr. Ford explained that none of the commercially available assays could make this distinction, which prompted the team to dig deeper into the literature and evaluate alternative approaches. This led us to focus on assays such as the PP1 inhibition assay, which provides quantitative measurements of toxin activity over time, and HPLC, which can confirm degradation events. Because MC-LR is a cyclic hepatotoxin, its toxicity is reduced once the cyclic structure is broken and it is converted into the linear form.⁷ With HPLC, this degradation can be confirmed by comparing peak patterns, as the intact cyclic toxin produces distinct chromatographic peaks that shift or disappear as it is degraded into linearized, less toxic products. Together, these insights shaped the foundation of our assay selection strategy moving forward.

Figure 6. Meeting and Facilties Tour with Dr. Lance Ford, Attogene CEO

Dr. Katherine Perri

Our team sought to better understand the challenges posed by harmful algal blooms (HABs) in Lady Bird Lake, particularly the events that led to several dog mortalities in 2019.⁸ To gain deeper insight, we reached out to Dr. Katherine Perri, a researcher at Texas A&M University who played a key role in investigating those incidents. Her extensive work on cyanobacterial proliferations across Texas made her an ideal expert to consult, and her perspective provided critical context for shaping our project.

During our discussion, Dr. Perri described how her research journey began in the Great Lakes region, where she investigated cyanobacterial blooms and their nutrient drivers during her doctoral work. Since then, she has developed molecular tools such as universal primers for detecting microcystin-producing strains and has collaborated with local agencies to establish the monitoring systems currently used in Lady Bird Lake and Lake Travis. She explained that cyanotoxins like microcystins are only released when cyanobacterial cells die or rupture, which means that by the time toxins are detected, exposure risks are often already present. This highlighted a key limitation of existing monitoring efforts and reinforced the need for more rapid and sensitive detection tools like the one we are striving to develop.

In addition to technical guidance, Dr. Perri emphasized the importance of public education and outreach. She suggested that community interviews should highlight safe practices for pet owners, such as preventing dogs from licking themselves after swimming and bringing towels to reduce exposure. We implemented her suggestions when performing community interviews among local Austinites on Lady Bird Lake, as we asked community members about their level of knowledge regarding HABs, and informed them of safe practices to keep themselves and their pets safe. She identified Red Bud Isle, a nutrient-rich and turbulent site at the base of the dam, as a location of particular concern for HAB risk.⁹ These recommendations reinforced our view of the project not only as a technical solution but also as part of a broader public health effort to reduce exposure and protect community members and their pets.

Figure 7. Meeting with Dr. Katheriene Perri

Dr. Dexter

The degradation team concentrated much of their work on the mlr, pathway, a gene cassette known to mediate the breakdown of microcystins (MCs). Within this pathway, they were particularly interested in mlrA, the enzyme that initiates cleavage of the cyclic structure of microcystin, since disrupting the ring is a critical first step in reducing its toxicity. ¹⁰ After reviewing several of the key publications on the pathway, the team arranged a meeting with Dr. Jason Dexter, a biochemistry professor from Poland and one of the leading researchers in this field. Having studied his published work beforehand, the team was eager to gain his perspective on both the enzymatic mechanism and the practical considerations for applying it in a synthetic system. A major challenge for the team was determining how to verify whether their engineered degradation system was successfully converting the cyclic form of microcystin into its linearized product. Dr. Dexter helped guide the team in understanding which assays might be most effective for this purpose, while also clarifying important aspects of the degradation pathway itself. Early in their discussions, the team expressed concern that the absence of mlrB in their construct could cause an accumulation of linearized intermediates within A. baylyi ADP1. However, Dr. Dexter reassured them that this was unlikely to pose a significant problem and encouraged them to move forward with confidence in their design.