The issue

PFAS: new toxic chemicals

PFAS (for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a family of synthetic chemicals that have been part of our daily lives for over 60 years. Found in waterproof clothing, food packaging, non-stick coated cookware, firefighting foams… these substances are the perfect candidates for many industrial applications, as they are extremely hydrophobic, lipophobic and heat resistant.

Our motivation

A rising concern in France

PFAS have raised serious concerns in France for several years now. In 2025, concrete actions were taken to limit their use and the exposure of the population to these chemicals. In addition to the European rules already monitoring the use of specific PFASs (like PFOS and PFOA), the French legislation built a National Plan of Action against PFAS, which was implemented in February 2025 [12]. With this initiative, France becomes one of the first European countries planning to ban PFAS in cosmetics and textile, by January 2026.
But contamination is already all over the country, all over Europe, and PFAS production itself is still not forbidden. To understand the scale of this contamination and what it involves, the French journal Le Monde and 29 other collaborators estimated the decontamination cost of PFAS in Europe.

It stands at 100 billion euros by year

The surveillance of these contamination also revealed several hotspots in France where the health of inhabitants is now at risk. We knew as an iGEM team that we wanted to use biotechnology to act for people and for the environment. Considering the scale of PFAS pollution, our choice was made, and PFAway was born.

Our solution

PFAway: decontaminating our environment with a fully integrated solution

PFAway is a bioremediation solution born to remediate the PFAS contamination in water in three ways :

Degrading long-chain PFAS
Defluorinating short-chain PFAS
Increasing the resistance of our bacterial chassis to fluoride anions

1. Degrading long-chain PFAS

Degrading long-chain PFAS is the first step of the process, using a newly described bacterium: Labrys portucalensis strain F11. This strain has the capacity of degrading three different types of eight-carbon chain PFAS into smaller chain PFAS like trifluoroacetic acid (TFA, three fluor-carbon bonds) and perfluoropropanoic acid (PFPrA, five fluor-carbon bonds) [1].

Conclusion

With PFAway, say goodbye to forever pollutants. Our integrative bioremediation solution will enable the breakdown of PFAS and pave the way for decontamination. In addition, we implemented an in vivo mutagenesis technique based on orthogonal replication, which will be an invaluable tool for future iGEMers.