What we changed about Judging in 2023

As the iGEM Competition evolves each year, so does the way we do judging. For example, the last major changes occurred during the pandemic years and made it possible for all teams to participate whether they could access a laboratory or not. Now that pandemic restrictions have eased and teams are back in the lab, the Judging Committee has reviewed the judging criteria and the feedback we received, and have defined a few goals for the 2023 Competition.

Opening Day 2023 - Welcome to the 20th year of iGEM!

The experience that you are about to begin is truly unique. You will be given the opportunity to dream up solutions with your multi-talented team, gain meaningful insights by engaging directly with the very stakeholders who you wish to impact, and learn how to advocate for your ideas to gain the space and funding to execute on them. An iGEM Project is a crash course in the essential skills that are needed to bring a project to life.

A Look Back on the History of the iGEM Distribution

DNA Day (April 25) is just around the corner. As you can imagine, DNA is a rather big deal at iGEM. In just a few short weeks, the 2023 iGEM Distribution kit - containing thousands of physical DNA parts - will be sent in the mail to teams all around the world. Take a moment to consider what it means to have a curated collection of DNA parts from iGEM’s entire 20-year history arriving in your mailbox!

Bursting demographic bubbles: How to build a diverse and inclusive team

More diverse and inclusive teams produce greater innovation and overall better science. Yet, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields still exist within demographic bubbles due to the systemic and persistent exclusion of people based on gender, or ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, or other reasons. iGEM’s new purpose is to make sure that the field of synthetic biology, and all of the power that this technology holds, gets developed everywhere by everyone.

Building the future by giving back: Asimov partners with iGEM to accelerate mammalian synthetic biology

If you were in Paris for the iGEM Grand Jamboree, you may have already heard the news – Asimov is partnering with iGEM to build the future of mammalian synthetic biology! We are thrilled to be giving back to the community that has helped inspire, support, and connect students with each other to make synthetic biology the technology that will transform the world. 

The Ins and Outs of Paper Submission and Publication

The submission of research or review and seeing it published is one of the most exciting and anxious aspects of research. The iGEM community’s Academia and Research network’s fourth workshop in the Academic publishing workshop series, “The in’s and out’s of paper submission and publication by Dr. Bilge San”, aims to guide students through this process and provide comprehensive information on what to expect before and after submission.