This blog is where we share stories, announcements, and insights from around the iGEM community.
When you think of India, what comes to mind? Teams from India have a long history of participating in iGEM, known by most as the premier international synthetic biology competition, and the organization that helped to establish the synthetic biology industry. When you think of India, we invite you to think of local people solving local problems throughout every region of India using the tools of synthetic biology. That is the vision of iGEM Indian League.
What exactly is an “iGEM team”? Over the years, iGEM has evolved and expanded to accommodate new groups that want to participate, and to improve the iGEM experience by refining the kind and composition of teams, the roles of team members, and the sections in which the teams compete. We’ve put together some guidelines to help you understand the anatomy of an iGEM team.
Biotechnology is currently one of the fastest growing industries in India with a massive boom in the past 5 years. But while a lot of biotech infrastructure and resources exist in the country and technological advances have allowed the cost of sequencing and DNA synthesis to drop, this was not directed towards Synthetic Biology.
We asked iGEMers in different places around the world about the challenges they are facing when it comes to building their local synthetic biology ecosystems and advancing the engineering progress of biology. We learned that specific challenges vary not just between global regions, but between countries and localities as well. In keeping with iGEM’s new purpose of making sure that the field of synthetic biology, and all of the power that this technology holds, gets developed everywhere by everyone, we are developing the iGEM Leagues.
World TB Day is March 24, which marks the day in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced his discovery of the bacterium that causes TB – Mycobacterium tuberculosis – opening the way towards diagnosing and curing this disease. Despite being preventable and treatable, TB is still one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, second only to COVID-19 in 2020. This year the theme of World TB Day is “Invest to End TB. Save Lives”, reflecting the urgency to invest resources to end the global TB epidemic by 2030.
Bolivia’s need for scientific innovation inspired the formation of iGEM Bolivia, a student organization that seeks to create both a scientific community and a movement to advance bio-innovation in Bolivia. Students from four different regions of Bolivia (La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca) expressed interest and took the critical and important first step of finding and recruiting other students who were interested in learning the intricate details and methods of synthetic biology. Together they formed a team of more than 57 students who are eager to develop synthetic biology-based solutions in the near future that solve local challenges.
La necesidad de innovación científica de Bolivia inspiró la formación de iGEM Bolivia, una organización estudiantil que busca crear tanto una comunidad científica como un movimiento para avanzar en la bioinnovación en Bolivia.
Now more than ever the world needs synthetic biologists – talented and passionate people who are building a better world by engineering biology. iGEM is known by most as the premier international synthetic biology competition, and the organization that helped to establish the synthetic biology industry. But in 2022, iGEM has grown to be so much more than just the competition.
This Friday – March 4 – is World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development, a United Nations’ international day for celebrating engineers and engineering. It’s a day to recognize the critical role of engineers in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure that everyone has access to clean water, sanitation, reliable energy, and other basic human needs. In honor of World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development, we’d like to highlight the accomplishments of iGEM teams in engineering biological solutions towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Every year, hundreds of fascinating projects are developed by iGEMers to face the pressing challenges of our time and innovate for the future. I invite you to check out my interview with Maarten Lubbers as we discuss projects from the iGEM 2021 season that focus on biodiversity conservation. These are very different projects using very different approaches by iGEM teams from different continents around the globe.
On Friday February 11, the United Nations will observe the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. We’d like to honor the International Day of Women and Girls in Science by raising awareness about the projects and events of the Women in STEM initiative (WiSTEM).
With over 3K downloads and listeners from 37 different countries, iGEM Podcasts combines the creativity of writing and media with the intellectual fascination of the field. Here’s a recap from 2021 of all the amazing conversations on iGEM Podcasts with those who are shaping the future of synthetic biology and our lovely blue planet.
We had a truly amazing year - find out all about what EPIC has done and how we’ve helped foster a great ecosystem of biofounders from all around the world!
The end of an iGEM competition season brings a time of both reflection and renewed hope. As we look back on iGEM 2021 — another challenging season to be sure — we are inspired by the iGEM community’s remarkable resilience and interconnectedness. Amidst the ongoing pandemic, where teams continued to face uncertainties over lab access, data collection obstacles, and travel restrictions, the iGEM community found even more ways to support and connect with one another.
This year we sent Mélodie Dupré Chair of the iGEM Industry Network, (an After iGEM steering group who promote the effective communication between iGEMers & iGEM Industry Alumni) to represent the iGEM community and check out the worlds largest deeptech event - The Hello Tomorrow Global Summit 2021! We caught up with Mélodie to learn more about her experiences!
Can you imagine how the future would look if local people solved local problems everywhere in the world? To envision such a future, 25 teams from 8 Latin-American countries, comprising 480 students, took on the challenge of applying biological design to solve local problems in iGEM Design League 2021.
Você pode imaginar como seria o futuro se a população local resolvesse os problemas locais em todo o mundo? Para vislumbrar esse futuro, 25 equipes de 8 países latino-americanos, compreendendo 480 alunos, assumiram o desafio de aplicar o design biológico para resolver problemas locais na iGEM Design League 2021.
¿Te imaginas cómo sería el futuro si personas locales resolvieran problemas locales en todo el mundo? Para vislumbrar ese futuro, 25 equipos de 8 países latinoamericanos, compuestos por 480 estudiantes, asumieron el desafío de aplicar el diseño biológico para resolver problemas locales en iGEM Design League 2021.
This year, 350 teams of student scientists and engineers from 46 countries and regions worked creatively and tirelessly to push the frontiers of synthetic biology – with or without access to a laboratory. They have identified important local problems, presented their ideas for engineering biological solutions, addressed tough questions about the safety and security of their work, and sought innovative ways to include ever more diverse groups of people.
As an iGEM alumnus, you automatically become a member of iGEM Community, and your iGEM pin becomes a memento symbolizing this vibrant and active community – Welcome to iGEM Community!
![[ES] iGEM Bolivia: Un movimiento científico para el acceso a la bioinnovación](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c0571c05cfd7950e5a84c99/1647014622675-3PCP8K96CKOFVLR32VWP/T--Bolivia--Team.png)
