Finding Her Passion and Building the Synthetic Biology Community in Indonesia: An after iGEM tale
Motivated by Sumbawagen, an iGEM team from Sumbawa and the university where she is currently working, Nurul joined the iGEM competition in 2018 as a team leader of Lund iGEM Team and as an iGEM Ambassador for Asia in 2019. She has also helped establish Synbio.id, a non-profit involved in developing Synbio in Indonesia and is currently delegated as Vice Rector for Collaboration and University Development at Universitas Teknologi Sumbawa.
IGEM-LUND 2018 - FIRST iGEM EXPERIENCE
Her team’s iGEM project revolved around the co-expression of a bacterial haemoglobin as a means to increase oxygen utilisation which in turn improves the yields of products generated from bioreactors for pharmaceuticals, food additives and enzymes.
“The focus of the research was maintaining a sufficient amount of oxygen supply in a bioreactor in order to increase cell density. This goal can be obtained by co-expressing a desired protein gene with the VHb. Oxygen supply is one of the major problems for aerobic fermentation when cell density is high. We tried to find a solution in maintaining oxygen level hence the cell density can increase.”
Although her team won the first gold medal for iGEM-Lund that year, if she could go back in time, she would tell herself, "Well, joining iGEM competition was one of the best moments of my life when I did beyond what I could think I could do. If I could go back, I would say to myself
“be more confident Nurul, this is your huge chance to learn many things and prove yourself."
Recalling one of the funniest moments of her competition journey, she said, “It was when the Wiki Freeze was around the corner, less than a week. We were at the last stage of proof of our project, we managed to clone the gene in a plasmid. When we produced the protein, it failed, and it was a day before the Wiki Freeze. Then we analysed the failure and found that we apparently forgot to put the start codon in the plasmid.”
Joining and involving with iGEM helped her become more persistent, brave, and confident as she could meet great people from all over the world.
“iGEM influenced me a lot to be who I am today. iGEM makes me see that biology can be integrated with digitalisation and “machinery”.
AMBASSADOR PROGRAM - BEYOND THE COMPETITION
Throughout her journey as an Ambassador for iGEM, she met exciting people, scholars and iGEM teams from Southeast Asia and had several international trips in 2019. “Being an ambassador was a valuable moment when I had to have online meetings at least once a week in the middle of the night since the other ambassadors lived on various continents.”
“Joining iGEM competition made me fall in love with synthetic biology, which was not part of the curriculum of Biotechnology Lund back then. I wanted to stay connected with synbio and build up my connection. Apart from that, I was also eager to increase my communication skills. On top of that, I was eager to promote synbio within my region, which was not popular.”
The most memorable moment for Nurul as an ambassador was when she shared the stage with her fellow ambassadors at the 2019 Giant Jamboree. “I could see how the iGEM participants from all over the world were so excited and full of energy. After that agenda, I went to the poster hall and then some teams approached me and thanked me for inspiring them.”
SYNBIO.ID: HER CONTRIBUTION TO THE FUTURE OF SYNBIO
Talking about the future of SynBio, she said, “I see how synbio-based start-ups are growing everywhere worldwide as they offer breakthroughs and sustainability. So I believe that in the near future, synbio start-ups will grow more, and the stakeholders will be more inspired by the sustainable solution.”
After her stint as an Ambassador, she wanted to contribute to the growth of SynBio in Indonesia -
“When I was as an ambassador, synbio wasn’t popular in academia. Only universities that sent their students to iGEM knew, but only seven universities out of over 300 universities in Indonesia and It was too few. Countries, such as Indonesia - with a huge biodiversity, need to be familiarised with this technology. Hence, my colleagues and I initiated a community(Synbio.id) in 2019 that could increase the awareness of synbio at least among the undergrad students, academics and researchers.”
She describes Synbio.id as “a non-profit foundation that catalyses the advancement of synbio in Indonesia and southeast Asia, bridges the academics and stakeholders, initiates a platform for students, and a platform for early careers.”
CURRENT ROLE: TEACHING BIOLOGY TO STUDENTS
“I am currently delegated as Vice Rector for Collaboration and University Development. Apart from that, I am also teaching Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the department of Biotechnology. Of course, it is closely related to synbio, and I promote synbio quite a lot.”
Upon asking about her motivation for her current work, she said “I love teaching and researching. Being a lecturer in Indonesia, it is mandatory to do both as well as community service. Those two mandatory responsibilities motivate me always to be updated with the current technology worldwide and support me in learning more about synbio. As a vice-rector for collaboration, it develops my communication and collaboration skills which are very important for me.”
Her plans for the near future include pursuing a PhD. In the long term, she wants to strengthen her expertise in synbio and wants to contribute to her community by solving local problems using synbio.
NURUL’S MESSAGE TO FUTURE iGEMERS
“Doing iGEM is to challenge yourself; you might be saying something “mission impossible”, especially to those who are from developing countries or a university that is not well equipped with a molecular lab. But, iGEM will open so many doors that offer thousands of opportunities for your future career, so do it now or never.”
Join us in Paris and celebrate the 20th Year of iGEM at the 2023 Grand Jamboree.
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