By Mike Spear
SPOTLIgHT
neXt generatIon
of SynthetIC bIology reSearCh
StartS here
International Genetically Engineered Machine. A name likely to raise the eyebrows The University of Calgary if not the anxiety level of the Collegiate iGEM team. general public. iGEM. Now that sounds much nicer, if not downright trendy in a culture that likes to stick that little ‘i’ in front of a range of products, events, and ideas. When iGEM began in The International Geneti2003, it was a course that cally Engineered Machine was part of the month long competition, or iGEM, has Independent Activities Penot faced the anxiety of the riod at MIT in Boston, where public and is certainly not those kind of enthusiastic trendy in any big way. What it students were challenged has done though is invigorate with making a cell blink. The a new generation of scienfollowing year it became a tists, promote an open and Some of the University of Lethbridge Collegiate iGEM team. local competition among five community-minded attitude teams and by last year’s competition, it had grown to to research, and encourage the development of new “thIS IS probably 245 teams in three competitive divisions drawn from tools and ideas in the field of synthetic biology. 34 countries. Among the 3,000 participants, there was Anders Nygren is an associate professor in Electrical the fIrSt and a strong representation from Canada, and Alberta and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary probably the only has had a strong showing including the University of (U of C) and co-director of the Centre for Bioengineering Research and Education. He’s also a faculty tIme they have goIng Calgary Collegiate team scooping up the Best Human advisor for the Calgary iGEM Collegiate team and sees through unIverSIty Practices Award in last year’s finals. iGEM is simple in concept, challenging in execution, the enthusiasm the students bring to the competition of maKIng mIStaKeS and both wide and deep in the science needed to pull every year. off a project that will get you past the Regional Jam“Often times I find my role is to get the students to optImIZe borees and into the International Jamboree in Boston together and then get out of their way and let them SomethIng.” in the late fall. At the start of the project each team do their work. It’s really amazing to see what happens when you get the students together in a room for the — hans-Joachin wieden is given a kit of ‘BioBricks’ or biological parts from iGEM’s Registry of Standard Biological Parts to work summer.” 20 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS July/August 2013
