| The International Genetically
Modified Machines (iGEM) competition is an experiential learning program
that brings together teams of high school, undergraduate, and graduate
students from around the world to learn over the course of a summer how
to build biological systems from standard, interchangeable parts. (See
http://2008.igem.org/Main_Page) At the end of the summer, each team travels
to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to interact with other teams
and share their results in juried competition at the iGEM Jamboree. The
NSF-funded Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), based
at the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley), is a key supporter
of the iGEM Jamboree financially, and in terms of leadership and assessment
of the program. (The director of iGEM, MIT professor Randy Rettberg,
is a SynBERC researcher.)
The iGEM competition is growing
rapidly, in 2008 hosting 84 teams from 21 countries, with more than 800
student participants. Over the course of a weekend, teams composed
of students from all over the world come together to share their passion
for synthetic biology. The teams that presented at the Jamboree in November
2008 applied innovative approaches to a diversity of areas—from foundational
advances to applications of synthetic biology in environmental, food, and
health sciences. Several of the top teams were from SynBERC partner
institutions, including the University of California at San Francisco,
UC Berkeley, and Harvard University. UC Berkeley’s Clonebots team
won a gold medal and was a finalist in the overall competition. The UC
Berkeley Tools team won gold for “Best Software Tool.” Harvard was a gold-medal
finalist in the “Best Food or Energy Project” category. UCSF took
bronze for a project in the “Best New Application” area.
This year’s iGEM competition
was remarkable for the larger-than-usual participation of high school students—a
trend that SynBERC has spearheaded—which shows how the engineering focus
of synthetic biology can excite students at all levels of science education.
Also, several teams initiated international student exchange programs,
for example with students in China and Slovenia, strengthening the program’s
spirit of international collaboration. |
