This blog is where we share stories, announcements, and insights from around the iGEM community.
Industrial scale-up helps bridge the gap between laboratory experiments and real-world implementation by addressing technical, economic, and practical challenges. Because industrial scale-up will require significant innovations if synthetic biology is to continue being a game-changing industry, the iGEM Competition has an entire Village dedicated to the challenges of industrial scale-up.
In the inaugural session of the BridgeBio project’s ‘Leading Ladies of SynBio’ series, we hosted Dr. Aoife Brennan. Dr. Brennan is an experienced physician, Scientist and CEO of Synlogic Therapeutics, a leading biotechnology company.
Yeast spores are typically not considered a problem in most situations. However, yeast spores can become problematic under certain circumstances. To help mitigate this risk, all teams who want to work with spore-forming fungi, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, must first complete a Check-In Form to get permission from iGEM’s Safety and Security Committee.
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.
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.
This year, iGEM is introducing three new Villages – Agriculture, Bioremediation, and Space. Though iGEM teams have worked on projects in these areas for many years, this will be the first time teams will be gathered together within these official Villages.
Epistra Inc. CTOであり、iGEM Osaka 2012 & 2013 (Leader) のメンバーであった、Taku Tsuzukiへのインタビューです。彼は、iGEM Team Leaderでの経験から、2社の会社を創業を行ったEntrepreneurです。
Learn how an iGEMer from Japan started her Synthetic Biology journey in Sweden. How participating in iGEM helped her in her career and overcoming challenges.
An interview with Taku Tsuzuki, CTO of Epistra Inc. and member of iGEM Osaka 2012 & 2013 (Leader) from Japan. He is an entrepreneur who has started two companies based on his experience as an iGEM Team Leader.
BridgeBio aims to bring iGEMers and iGEM stakeholders, industrialists, and bio-founders closer together to benefit each other in different areas and strengthen iGEM and synthetic biology in their community.
While the global synthetic biology landscape grows each year, regional communities play a vital role cultivating synbio ecosystems. Read their stories on our upcoming SynBio Alliance Blog Series, starting today with some highlights on the special issue on "Global Synthetic Biology Landscape" from Biotech Note.
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!
Ever since I worked on the Astroshield project with my teammates on the Sao_Carlos-Brazil 2019 iGEM team, I’ve been fascinated with how synthetic biology applied to space exploration can yield important insights for making life better here on Earth.
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.
Every five years, the States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention hold a Review Conference, where they make decisions about the future of the treaty. In 2022, iGEM brought 10 delegates to participate in drafting the Youth Recommendations for the Ninth Review Conference of the BWC held in Geneva, Switzerland in 2022.
iGEM influenced me a lot to be who I am today. iGEM makes me see that biology can be integrated with digitalisation and “machinery”.
This Saturday (February 11) we celebrate the International Day of Womens and Girls in Science - a day proclaimed by the United Nations aiming “to ensure full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls.”
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.
iGEM acted as my gateway into exploring research in biology, which I might not have actively looked into otherwise. I would say iGEM happens to be one of the means by which I found my liking for synthetic and quantitative biology.
