Help Team BMI protect global food security at iGEM!

All stories start somewhere, and ours starts with Ahmed.

Ahmed is a villager in Bangladesh.

Every day he wakes up, brushes his teeth, kisses his wife good morning, has breakfast with the kids before they go to school, and tries to shell out a living.

But, the heat isn't helping with his crops. The soil doesn't feel right. The water table is rising. He's afraid he won't be able to pay for his kid's education anymore if this harvest turns out like the last few.

Due to climate change, farmers like Ahmed are losing their livelihoods to drought and salinity, especially in Pakistan where 6.67 million hectares of land have become saline and crop disease is on the rise. Global warming is threatening global food security and third-world countries are heavily affected.

It's people like Ahmed and 475 million others like him around the world who we want to help with our project.

We are Team EMERALDS from Pakistan!

With your help, we aspire to be the first Pakistani high school team in six years to represent Pakistan and showcase it's youngest trailblazers at the iGEM Grand Jamboree 2025, the largest global synthetic biology conference that is taking place in Paris.

Our project aims to develop an open-source host-to-plant bacterium secretion system by genetically modifying plants to regulate their own microbiome, accelerating their growth and stopping plant disease in its tracks, in hopes of creating a cheaper pipeline for GMO development that can be accessible to all.

To conduct our research and register for the competition, we need to raise $6500. We appreciate anything you can give to support our team and research!

Your funds will not only bring our team to Paris but will bring hope of a brighter future to so many people around the world whose livelihoods are threatened by climate change.

You can check out our project on Instagram for more information.

https://www.instagram.com/igem.pakistan/

We are grateful for your support!