I=92m Stuart Strand, Research Professor at the University of Washington in = Seattle. For 20 years, our lab, supported by the National Institutes of Hea= lth, Dept of Defense, and the National Science Foundation, has successfully= designed plants that clean up pollutants in contaminated soils and water. = Now we want to create house plants that can purify the air in your house.
The air in your home may have more benzene and chloroform (two cancer causi= ng pollutants) than is allowed in the workplace. Every time you park your c= ar in an attached garage or take a shower you are adding benzene and chloro= form to your home air.=20
Rabbits have an enzyme in their liver (2E1) that grabs onto chloroform and = benzene and gets oxygen from the air to burn up the pollutants. We have lab= plants with the 2E1 gene that can remove chloroform and benzene 20 times f= aster than the untransformed plants. Now we want to take the rabbit enzyme = and put it into a common houseplant, pothos ivy, making SuperPothos plants = to protect your family.
Ordinary plants have some ability to clean the air, but the amount of folia= ge required to have a significant impact on pollutants would be hundreds of= plants per room! SuperPothos plants could do the job with only a few plant= s per room. If you=92re interested, take a look at our project website, =20