IGEM:MIT/Sponsorship

iGEM

iGEM is the international Genetically Engineered Machines competition that involves 39 schools and over 400 students from all over the world competing to design the "coolest" engineered biological system. Students specify the system they want to build, design the system from either prespecified biological parts and devices from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts or engineer new components and then construct and test the system in typical biological research laboratories. The work is done over the course of a summer and then teams from all schools come together in November on the MIT campus to demonstrate their projects.

Goals

Previous student design competitions (i.e. robotics competitions) have demonstrated the educational power of students facing engineering challenges in pursuit of their own design goals. iGEM seeks to bring that educational experience to the field of biology.

The research goal of iGEM is to learn how to best design and build engineered biological systems. The educational goal of iGEM is to enable all interested students to participate directly in the work of learning how to engineer biology. Our long-term goals are (1) to enable the systematic engineering of biology, (2) to promote the open and transparent development of tools for engineering biology, and (3) to help construct a society that can productively apply biological technology.

MIT and iGEM

During MIT's Independent Activity Periods (IAP) of January 2003, student teams designed biological oscillators coupled to fluorescent reporters. These genetic blinkers were intended to improve on Elowitz's Repressilator. One team coupled two oscillators to even out the oscillations. Another used cell-cell signaling to coordinate the oscillators in a colony. During the January 2004 IAP, teams designed genetic systems to create cellular patterns varying from bull’s-eyes to polka dots and even dynamic designs where cells swim together. From these designs, standard biological parts were designed and synthesized.

Summer of 2004 brought the first Synthetic Biology Competition. Student teams from five schools (Princeton, MIT, Caltech, UT Austin, and Boston University) competed to build cellular state machines and counters. The teams came together for a jamboree in early November to compare their results. The most graphic project was "photographic biofilm" that could capture an image.

In the summer of 2005, student teams from thirteen schools (Berkeley, Caltech, Cambridge UK, Davidson, ETH Zurich, Harvard, MIT, Oklahoma, Penn State, Princeton, Toronto, UCSF, and UT Austin) participated in the 2005 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. Later, during the first weekend of November, over 150 of these students, instructors, and PIs came together for a jamboree to share and celebrate their work.

The iGEM 2005 student projects displayed the designs of chemotaxis regulation systems, cell-cell genetic communications systems, cellular/biological wires, thermometers, biological sketch pads (drawing systems), cellular relay races, a digital counter, and many more.

While at these early stages few of the projects are fully functional, many of the required subsystems demonstrated correct operation. Some of the student teams are continuing to work on their projects. One surprising result of iGEM 2005 is that several of the schools have begun to incorporate Synthetic Biology into their undergraduate curriculum based on work from the 2005 event.

Future of iGEM

• Future and vision of the competition

MIT iGEM team

• Short bio's of the team

Relevant press coverage

Mainstream

• The March of the Bio-Machines Advances - London Press - 3/20/06
• Controlling organisms with biological circuits opens up a world of possibilities and dangers - San Diego Union Tribune - 12/6/05
• The Biological Camera - Seed Magazine - 11/29/05
• Live From the Lab, a Culture Worth a Thousand Words - New York Times - 11/24/05

Science

• 7 from Penn State enter the Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition - Sci/Tech News Service - 2/06/06
• Live Photographs - Jumping Electrons - 12/12/06
• The Sum of the Parts - Science News - 12/10/06

• Synthetic Biology: Designs on Life - Nature - 11/24/05
• iGEM 2005: Synthetic Biology’s Future - Bio IT World.com - 11/8/2005
• Synthetic Life Research Shows Progress—And Raises Questions - American Association for the Advancement of Science - 11/5/2005
• The List: R&D Projects that must get done - EE Times - 8/8/05
• Life: Reinvented - Wired - 1/05
• Starting from scratch Nature - 11/6/04
• Conference hones tools for synthetic bio revolution - EE Times - 6/21/04
• Conference kicks off synthetic bio revolution - EE Times - 6/15/04
• SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY: Microbes Made to Order - Science - 1/9/2004

Institutional coverage

• Students plan to devote summer to MIT synthetic biology competition - Brown Daily Herald - 3/20/2006
• Endy gives talk on DNA programming - MIT News Office - 3/08/2006
• Ready. Set. Grow!? - Penn State - 1/31/06
• Designs on life - Cambridge - 1/25/06
• The Right Exposure - UT Austin - 12/19/2005
• Genetically engineered machines invade MIT - MIT - 12/17/05
• Students race bacteria in MIT competition - The Digital Collegian at Penn State - 12/08/05
• Davidson Students “Ace” Presentation at MIT Synthetic Biology Competition - Davidson - 11/29/05
• Scientists engineer bacteria to create living photographs UCSF - 11/23/05
• Teams lay BioBrick foundation for genetic engineering - MIT news office - 11/08/05
• Undergraduates spend summer creating living machines - Harvard - 8/25/05
• Students build bio-circuits - Daily Princetonian - 2/3/2005