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By Paul Winters
BIO this year became one of the sponsors of the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. In this annual synthetic biology competition, teams of undergraduate students from around the world are provided a kit of biological parts from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools, teams use these parts, known as BioBricks, and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. Teams then gather to present their projects at the annual iGEM Championship Jamboree.
This year, the jamboree was held Nov. 8-9, 2008 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. In its sixth year, iGEM 2008 hosted 85 teams with over 1,000 participants representing 21 countries participating in the competition. The competition has seen tremendous growth, with 32 teams in 2006 and 54 teams in 2007.
Synthetic biology is a new multidisciplinary area of life science that is providing new tools for biotech researchers. Synthetic biology combines chemical synthesis of DNA with growing knowledge of genomics to enable researchers to quickly manufacture catalogued DNA sequences and assemble them into new genomes. Improvements in the speed and cost of DNA synthesis are enabling scientists to design and synthesize modified bacterial chromosomes that can produce useful products.
A central goal of synthetic biology is to identify and catalog standardized genomic parts that can be used (and synthesized quickly) to build novel biological systems. Expanding the Registry of Standard Biological Parts is one of the most important aspects of the iGEM competition. "This year, we sent out 2,000 DNA parts to each team, and we're getting back 1,500 new parts," said Randy Rettberg, iGEM director and a principal research scientist at MIT.
Janet Nelson, BIO's director of the Industrial and Environmental Section, acted as a judge for the competition, reviewing a selection of the projects. She noted, "The progress on real-world applications that has been accomplished by students with minimal formal training and a very limited amount of time is simply amazing."
This year's winning project and recipient of the BioBrick Trophy came from Slovenia, with first and second runner up prizes presented to the University of Freiburg, Germany and the California Institute of Technology, respectively. Other noted prizes were presented to Brown University for "Best Environment Project," Harvard for "Best Food or Energy Project" and Imperial College of London for "Best New BioBrick Part, Natural."
The Slovenian team, consisting of seven undergraduates, built and tested three kinds of brand new vaccines against the bacteria Helicobacter pylori. H. pylori infects half the world population, causing gastritis and contributing to increased incidence of ulcers and gastric malignancies. Although drugs for ulcers are commonly available, there is presently no vaccine for H. pylori.
The University of Freiburg team created a system to control transmembrane proteins. Transmembrane proteins control proliferation, differentiation, and cellular response and are key for the formation of multicellular organisms. Controlling such proteins could enable scientists to modify cellular behavior and ultimately program cells at will.
The Caltech team redesigned the often harmful E. coli bacteria to fight pathogens, treat lactose intolerance, and possibly prevent birth defects due to folate over-expression or deficiency. Their research demonstrates that synthetic biology techniques can be used to modify naturally occurring microbial communities for applications in biomedicine and biotechnology.
Summing up this year's achievements, Rettberg said the question that launched the competition five years ago has, happily, become moot: "Can simple biological systems be built from standard, interchangeable parts and operated in living cells? Or is natural biology too complicated and unique? The answer is starting to become obvious."
For more information about iGEM, visit www.igem.org.
Paul Winters is director of broadcast media at BIO.
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