Cyanobacterial neurotoxin BMAA in ALS and Alzheimer's disease
http://tidenetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Bradley-1.pdf

A description of finding the toxic amino acid BMAA in many brains of Alzheimer's and ALS victims, but rarely in other human brains.

BMAA is produced by blue-green algae and cyanobacteria.

Which looks more worthwhile?

1. Adding BMAA to the amino acids minirosetta can work with, in order to investigate this possible cause of Alzheimer's and ALS, and also to work with proteins specific to blue-green algae and cyanobacteria.

2. Design an enzyme that will convert BMAA to something less toxic to humans.

3. Some lab work to verify what this paper says.


Another paper on BMAA; a few special characters in the title did not copy correctly:

Diverse taxa of cyanobacteria produce B-N-methylamino-L-alanine, a neurotoxic amino acid
http://www.serrano.neves.nom.br/lsm/aguadoce/ciano_02.pdf

Another possibility to consider:

4. Design an antibiotic that kills cyanobacteria and possibly also blue-green algae, but has little effect on other life forms.