GenScript's partnership with iGEM: Investing in a brighter future with synthetic biology
GenScript's founders recognized that limited access to high-quality and reliable reagents significantly restricted advances in life science research. Therefore, for over 20 years, GenScript has developed, adopted, and improved upon many innovative synthetic biology technologies, expanded its footprint, and established partnerships with scientists globally. Among these partnerships, GenScript's connection with the iGEM community is of particular significance. iGEM enables aspiring young scientists to imagine and collaborate in creating solutions for a brighter future with synthetic biology.
Every year, iGEMers are challenged to work together, leveraging the strengths of synthetic biology technologies to create solutions for local or even global communities. In many ways, GenScript's collaborative spirit and mission of "making people and nature healthier through biotechnology" mirror iGEM's goals, which is why this partnership made a lot of sense from its start in 2009. It has been an honor for GenScript to collaborate with iGEMers globally over the years and facilitate their innovations. To date, GenScript has sponsored over 70 teams, and we are thrilled to embark on a brand new year of support by sponsoring teams participating in the iGEM 2023 competition.
Looking back at iGEM 2022 Sponsorship
During the cycle that is an iGEM competition, participants are busy forming teams, designing and setting goals, building designs, testing, finalizing projects, and getting ready for their presentations at the iGEM annual grand Jamboree. In recent years, GenScript has joined this busy cycle and the excitement of iGEM competitions by engaging with teams through various activities, such as team interviews highlighting various sponsored teams' projects and sponsorship giveaways.
Last year, GenScript sponsored iGEM teams from Muenster, Hong Kong University, Vilnius, Hamburg, and Guadalajara. Additionally, in celebration of GenScript's 20th anniversary and during iGEM's 2022 sponsorship period, we leveraged our advanced DNA synthesis platform to provide teams with 20,000 sequenced base pairs for their projects. Among the awarded teams, the first prize of 10,000 base pairs went to iGEM TU Delft from the Netherlands. Their "SPIKE-Detect to Protect" project aims to develop a biosensor for gamma-hydroxybutyrate or GHB, a drug of increased public health concern in several European countries. Second and third prizes of 5,000 base pairs were awarded to iGEM teams KU Leuven and The King's School AU. Their projects focused on developing semi-rational design methods to engineer crops that may better withstand the effects of climate change and leveraging DNA shuffling to streamline the discovery and development of novel nanobodies for diagnostic applications, respectively.
GenScript at 2022 iGEM Grand Jamboree. GenScript's booth at the 2022 annual Jamboree in Paris allowed our staff to interact and meet many iGEM teams, including those sponsored.
Looking forward to partnering with 2023 iGEMers
In the 2023 iGEM competition cycle, GenScript continues to engage iGEMers through sponsorship giveaways. Teams have the opportunity to win $2,000 USD and a $1,000 Amazon gift card through the months of May to September, with one winner selected per month. GenScript is also giving away FREE plasmid prep services, providing teams with high-quality plasmids with 100% full-insert sequence accuracy.
How GenScript's services benefit the iGEM and synthetic biology community
From its original gene synthesis enabling platform, GenScript has grown over the years by developing and adopting new technologies that provide critical reagents to the global synthetic biology community. As a contract research organization (CRO), GenScript offers specialized and customized molecular biology services, including gene and oligo synthesis, cloning and subcloning, plasmid preparation, mutant library construction, and more.
Simplified gene services with GenSmart
Many of these services, while customized, can be easily sourced through GenScript's GenSmart online ordering platform. GenSmart facilitates the selection of service options so that customers seamlessly navigate from codon-optimized gene synthesis requests to plasmid design and plasmid DNA preparation options.
GenScript's plasmid DNA preparation services are designed to support the needs of small research labs and larger groups in biotech and pharma, providing high-quality plasmids to ensure efficient cell transfection for various downstream applications. To satisfy the specific requirements of these groups, GenScript offers plasmid preparations at research, industrial, and preclinical grades, each backed by extensive quality control specifications.
GenSmart tools for iGEMers
iGEMers can benefit from GenScript's free online DNA construct design tool, "GenSmartTM Design," which simplifies planning individual plasmids and DNA libraries. GenSmart design enables accessing 200+ frequently used commercial vectors, 2000+ functional parts, and a commonly used database. Its integration with the GenSmartTM Codon Optimization tool facilitates optimizing insert gene sequences to achieve higher expression based on the selected system. The tool also provides automatic sequence annotation, a free plasmid map, and an error-checking algorithm.
Fast and reliable genes with GenTitan
To ease bottlenecks encountered by researchers in academia, biotech, and pharma requiring fast and high-quality synthetic DNA, GenScript has developed the first and only commercial miniature semiconductor platform with integrated circuits for high-throughput DNA synthesis. As a result, GenScript is able to offer the new GenTitan™ Gene Fragments synthesis service, which delivers fast, high-quality synthetic DNA at the lowest price on the market.
GenScript is proud to be a Partner Plus Sponsor of iGEM and can’t wait to see the accomplishments of the 2023 teams at the Grand Jamboree. See you soon in Paris!
