Utah State University’s International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team competed against more than 110 other teams during the 2009 jamboree, bringing home a gold medal for its efforts.

 

The iGEM competition is a synthetic biology competition. Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer. Working at their own schools, they use these parts along with parts of their own to build biological systems and operate them in living cells.

 

The aim of the USU iGEM project “BioBricks without Borders,” is to develop improved production and harvesting methods of proteins and to develop improved upstream and downstream processing strategies for manufacturing cellular products.

 

This is USU’s second year participating in the iGEM competition. The team includes high school, undergraduate and graduate students.

 

Charles Miller, the main faculty advisor for the team, said this competition was a great opportunity for students to learn from each other.

 

“This was a great opportunity for high school students to see how a biological engineering laboratory operates and to be a part of the USU team,” Miller said.

 

Libbie Linton, a student advisor for this year’s team, said the competition has added greatly to her educational experience as a whole.

 

“The iGEM competition provided all of us with an opportunity to gain more experience working with other people to accomplish a large project,” Linton said. “An iGEM project doesn’t just mean completing a research project. It requires making a Web site, a presentation and a poster to effectively communicate our project. We gained experience in a lot of different areas.”

 

Miller agreed the team benefited from the rigors of the competition.

 

“Most of the students had never worked in a biological engineering laboratory, so they learned skills that were not duplicated elsewhere,” Miller said. “I am very proud of what the USU iGEM team accomplished this year. They worked very hard, and their gold medal validates their efforts. The six finalists for the overall grand prize were from other countries, so no U.S. team ranked higher than the USU team.”

 

Linton also commented on the team’s opportunity to meet with competitors from around the world.

 

“More than half of the competing teams are from outside of the United States. We all had plenty of opportunities to meet fellow students from a variety of countries and backgrounds,” Linton said. “We were able to share and discuss our work with people from all over the world. There were a broad range of topics and a lot of great ideas that we can borrow from to improve the USU team in the coming years.”

 

Linton said the team’s success would not have been possible without the dedication of their faculty advisors.

 

“We definitely would not have fared as well at the competition if not for the direct involvement of our faculty mentors,” she said. “They always made themselves available to answer questions and provide input on how to make our project better. A great deal of time and effort was put toward this project, and receiving a gold medal is proof of how hard members of the team worked. It is a good feeling to be recognized for your efforts.”

 

Team members included Garrett Hinton, Jody Jerez, Jeff Karren, Tyrel Rupp, Hyun-Jin Kim, Sean Bedingfield, Cole Peterson, Alex Hatch, Rachel Porter, Trent Mortensen, Brad Henrie, Libbie Linton and Junling Huo. Faculty advisors included Charles Miller, Scott Hinton and Ronald Sims.

 

 

Writer: Jodi Burton, Jodi.burton@aggiemail.usu.edu