IGEM:MIT/Sponsorship: Difference between revisions

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'''Andre Green''':  Andre, from Louisiana, is a sophomore in Biological engineering.  That makes him one of the first of MIT's biological engineering majors.  He's been spending his summers working in numerous molecular biology labs so he's very excited about the chance to engineer a biological system to do what he wants it to do.
'''Andre Green''':  Andre, from Louisiana, is a sophomore in Biological engineering.  That makes him one of the first of MIT's biological engineering majors.  He's been spending his summers working in numerous molecular biology labs so he's very excited about the chance to engineer a biological system to do what he wants it to do.


'''Stephen Payne''': Stephen is also one of the new breed of MIT biological engineers.  In his free time he plays varsity hockey.  Stephen spent last summer working with the registry of standard biological parts.  With that experience under his belt, Stephen knows exactly what BioBricks he wants to use in MIT's biological machine this summer!
'''Stephen Payne''': Stephen is also one of the new breed of MIT biological engineers.  In his free time he plays varsity hockey.  Stephen spent last summer working with the MIT registry of standard biological parts.  With that experience under his belt, Stephen knows exactly what BioBricks he wants to use in MIT's biological machine this summer!


'''Veena Venkatachalam''': Veena is a freshman, hoping to major in biological engineering next year.  Veena is relishing the opportunity to construct a biological system, as she thinks there is something unique about projects that actually let you build something.  Veena was one of two national winners of the Siemens-Westinghouse Advanced Placement Scholarship last year.
'''Veena Venkatachalam''': Veena is a freshman, hoping to major in biological engineering next year.  Veena is relishing the opportunity to construct a biological system, as she thinks there is something unique about projects that actually let you build something.  Veena was one of two national winners of the Siemens-Westinghouse Advanced Placement Scholarship last year.

Revision as of 19:52, 25 April 2006

Cover page

Drew Endy
Cabot Assistant Professor of Biological Engineering, MIT
Endy Lab., MIT 68-580
77 Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA

Phone: +1 617.253.5494
Email: endy@mit.edu


Tom Knight
MIT CSAIL
32 Vassar Street, Room 32-312
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA

Phone: +1 617.253.7807
Email: tk@csail.mit.edu


Date:

Re: Sponsorship of the MIT undergraduate student design team for the iGEM competition

From: Drew Endy and Tom Knight

Overview

iGEM is the international Genetically Engineered Machines competition between 39 schools and over 400 students from around the world competing to design the "coolest" engineered biological system. Students design the system they want to build using novel or existing biological parts from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts and then construct and test the system in university biology laboratories. The teams work all summer before coming together at MIT in November to demonstrate their projects to their fellow teams.

Goals

Previous student design competitions (i.e. robotics competitions) have demonstrated the educational power of students overcoming 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
  3. to help construct a society that can productively and responsibly apply biological technology.

Successes to date

2003

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 upon Michael Elowitz's Repressilator. One team coupled two oscillators to reduce noise in 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.

2004

Summer of 2004 brought the first Synthetic Biology Competition. Student teams from five schools (Boston University, Caltech, MIT, Princeton, and UT Austin) competed to build cellular finite state machines. The teams came together for a jamboree in early November to share their results. The most developed project was "photographic biofilm" that could capture an image. In November of 2005, this system was published in Nature [URL].

2005

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 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 necessary sub-systems were functioning. 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 curricula based on work from the 2005 event.

Sponsorship

To aid in offsetting costs associated with MIT's participation in the iGEM competition, we are soliciting monetary and in-kind donations from individuals and businesses. These funds are critical to MIT's continuing success in the iGEM competition. Donations will be applied towards

  1. Student stipends (~$20k)
  2. Lab materials costs (~$10k)
  3. Commericial DNA synthesis of novel biological parts (~$20k)

In donating to the MIT iGEM team, you will

  1. help train the next generation of biological engineers
  2. contribute to the growth of the emerging field of synthetic biology
  3. receive invitations to attend the iGEM jamboree in November 2006 at the MIT campus in which teams from across the world present their design projects
  4. be acknowledged on team T-shirts and the team website as a sponsor. (Logo size will scale linearly with the size of the donation).

MIT iGEM team profile

Kate Broadbent: Kate is a freshman, expecting to declare as a chemical or biological engineer. In her spare time she manages to be one of the United States' top young equestrians. This summer, she's excited about working with bacteria rather than horses! Kate also happens to be a certifed biotechnology technician.

Giovanni Franzesi: Giovanni is a mechanical engineering senior. He's getting ready to start a masters in the Health Sciences and Technology program at MIT. He wants to put his engineering experience and love of biology to work to help MIT win this summer! His future interests lie in medical technologies and he hopes that synthetic biology will ultimately provide valuable new resources for medicine.

Andre Green: Andre, from Louisiana, is a sophomore in Biological engineering. That makes him one of the first of MIT's biological engineering majors. He's been spending his summers working in numerous molecular biology labs so he's very excited about the chance to engineer a biological system to do what he wants it to do.

Stephen Payne: Stephen is also one of the new breed of MIT biological engineers. In his free time he plays varsity hockey. Stephen spent last summer working with the MIT registry of standard biological parts. With that experience under his belt, Stephen knows exactly what BioBricks he wants to use in MIT's biological machine this summer!

Veena Venkatachalam: Veena is a freshman, hoping to major in biological engineering next year. Veena is relishing the opportunity to construct a biological system, as she thinks there is something unique about projects that actually let you build something. Veena was one of two national winners of the Siemens-Westinghouse Advanced Placement Scholarship last year.

Boyuan Zhu: Bo is a freshman who expects to be involved in biotechnology whether he decides on Electrical or biological engineering. With experience as an entrepeneur and a researcher, Bo relishes the opportunity to work on a field with such commercial and scientific potential. Last year he was one of the winners of the Microsoft/VC Angel Roundtable Business Plan Competition

The MIT iGEM team has several graduate student advisors including Barry Canton, Austin Che, Jason Kelly, Reshma Shetty and Samantha Sutton. In addition, MIT Biological Engineering's Drew Endy and MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory's Tom Knight will serve as faculty advisors.

Relevant press coverage

The iGEM competition has received extensive press coverage in both the mainstream and scientific press. Here is a compilation of articles on the competition.

Mainstream

Science

Institutional coverage

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