BDNNB: “That sounds horrible<\/em>!”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Not horrible, but electric, exhilerating and exciting, the spirit of the iGEM Jamboree is absolutely perfectly captured by iGEM HQ’s Flikr photostream<\/a> – also check out the iconic iGEM from above<\/a> picture:<\/p>\n iGEM from above<\/strong> November 8-9 saw the Stata Center at MIT host the iGEM Jamboree, the annual Trophies to be won, including the BioBrick tropy, far right.<\/strong> With more than eighty presentations running in seven concurrent tracks on Saturday, Jamboree attendees were obliged to attend only a fraction of the teams’ talks. Imperial iGEM 2008<\/a> gave it their all during the first session:<\/p>\n Team Imperial’s Chris wows the judges<\/strong> The evening was allocated to a Poster Session, allowing attendees to catch up with teams whose presentations they had missed, and to be grilled by the judges:<\/p>\n “If we use enough long words, do you think the judges will be impressed?”<\/strong> Late Saturday evening, the finalists were announced! The six teams making the final each found a quiet corner to perfect their presentations for the Grand Final on Sunday morning. Team Imperial headed to the bar…<\/p>\n On Sunday morning in the Kresge Auditorium, finalists Caltech<\/a>, Freiburg<\/a>, Harvard<\/a>, HYMU-Taipei<\/a>, Slovenia<\/a> and UC Berkeley<\/a> presented their work to the entire iGEM community.<\/p>\n Before the Grand Prize winner was announced, other prizes were awarded<\/a> Each team was eligible for one of three levels of medal<\/a> and in addition there were prizes in each track<\/a> and special prizes<\/a> for achievements and contributions to the Synthetic Biology Community. Imperial were delighted to walk away with two trophies – “Best Manufacturing Project” and “Best New BioBrick – Natural” for our molecular clutch, EpsE.<\/p>\n Slovenia<\/a> were awarded the Grand Prize for their immunobricks, with first and second runner-up places going to Freiburg<\/a> and Caltech<\/a> resepctively. This was the second Grand Prize for Slovenia, who also won in 2006<\/a>.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n When I explained what I was spending my summer doing, a friend remarked “Oh! Like Robot Wars for Bacteria!” Having witnessed the ingenuity and slick presentations at the iGEM Jamboree, I extend this analogy: “Robot-Wars-meets-Dragons-Den-with-a-touch-of-Eurovision”:<\/p>\n Team Heidelberg with their Dancing Phage<\/strong> Boston-dwelling NN blogger: “So what’s it like then?” Me: “Well, put it this way, I don’t think I’ve ever see 800 such enthusiastic science undergraduates in one place…” BDNNB: “That sounds horrible!” – Not horrible, but electric, exhilerating and exciting, … Continue reading
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\niGEM<\/a>, for iternational Genetically Engineered Machines, bills itself as the premiere undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition<\/a>. At the beginning of the summer, the 84 registered iGEM teams<\/a> were sent a kit of biological parts<\/a>. These parts, or BioBricks, come in the form of DNA sequences, prefixed and suffixed with standard restriction sites<\/a>, enabling them to be ligated using a standard protocol. Teams are instructed to use the existing library of parts, to combine them, characterise them, test them, and to design, synthesize and test their own<\/a>. By transforming bacteria with systems of BioBricks, iGEM teams engineer their cells to become biological machines.<\/p>\nweekend of mayhem<\/del> celebration of all things iGEM. Part-conference, part-party (Corrie<\/a> described her experience of the 2007 Jamboree as like a pep rally), the Jamboree is the teams’ opportunity to display their work for judging in the hope of being awarded a prize. Presentations were made, posters were displayed, ideas were shared and new friendships were declared, as teams vied for the coveted Grand Prize and BioBrick trophy.<\/p>\n
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