Friday, November 7th, 2008

Synthetic Biology Competition

courtesy IGEM

This weekend, students from around the world will gather at MIT for something called iGEM 2008, the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition -- a competition in which high school students and undergraduate teams show off their skills at engineering biological machines. Under contest rules, each team is given a kit of 'biological parts' at the beginning of the summer, drawn from a catalog known as the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Over the summer, the student teams use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. This year, eighty-four teams with over 1000 participants from twenty-one countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the US participated in the competition. We'll get a sneak preview.