Spring Break
Genetic Engineering team wins bronze medal
Issue date: 11/20/08
Hopkins's first International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) team won a bronze medal at the annual competition.
The iGEM competition is an undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition hosted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This year 84 teams participated in the competition with over 1,000 participants from 21 countries. Sixteen teams won the gold medal, 14 teams won silver and 38 teams won the bronze. Team Slovenia was the winner of this year's Grand Prize.
The members were disappointed at the bronze medal they received. They said the criteria for the competition had gotten stricter this year. Last year, most teams had won a gold medal. This year, only 16 teams received the gold.
"We could have done better. We really hadn't finished when we went to the competition," Carrick said. "We could have characterized parts more and could have put more work into the presentation."
Like the competition, which was developed in 2003 and stemmed originally from a course taught at MIT, the Hopkins iGEM group's topic also developed from an engineering class taught by Jef Boeke, professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics. As they had already learned how to make a yeast genome in class and were familiar with the subject, the iGEM team decided to design a yeast sex detector.
"Choosing the topic was not very difficult," said Ingrid Spielman, a junior material engineering student and a member of the iGEM team. "While other teams mostly focused on using bacteria as sensors, we focused on yeast. Most people in the team were in the Build A Genome class taught by Boeke."
DiCarlo spent most of the fall of last year organizing the team. It was very difficult to launch the team.
While there were interested students, it was hard to get funding to conductÂÂÂ their research and participate in the competition.
"Getting the money for our team was very hard, because we were new," DiCarlo said. "We had to go to different departments with Powerpoint presentations and persuade professors and administrators. We applied to grants. We got the Provost Undergraduate Research Award. We did make $17,000 for our project. But compared to other groups, our funding was very small. Other groups received money from major corporations."
The iGEM competition is an undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition hosted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This year 84 teams participated in the competition with over 1,000 participants from 21 countries. Sixteen teams won the gold medal, 14 teams won silver and 38 teams won the bronze. Team Slovenia was the winner of this year's Grand Prize.
The members were disappointed at the bronze medal they received. They said the criteria for the competition had gotten stricter this year. Last year, most teams had won a gold medal. This year, only 16 teams received the gold.
"We could have done better. We really hadn't finished when we went to the competition," Carrick said. "We could have characterized parts more and could have put more work into the presentation."
Like the competition, which was developed in 2003 and stemmed originally from a course taught at MIT, the Hopkins iGEM group's topic also developed from an engineering class taught by Jef Boeke, professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics. As they had already learned how to make a yeast genome in class and were familiar with the subject, the iGEM team decided to design a yeast sex detector.
"Choosing the topic was not very difficult," said Ingrid Spielman, a junior material engineering student and a member of the iGEM team. "While other teams mostly focused on using bacteria as sensors, we focused on yeast. Most people in the team were in the Build A Genome class taught by Boeke."
DiCarlo spent most of the fall of last year organizing the team. It was very difficult to launch the team.
While there were interested students, it was hard to get funding to conductÂÂÂ their research and participate in the competition.
"Getting the money for our team was very hard, because we were new," DiCarlo said. "We had to go to different departments with Powerpoint presentations and persuade professors and administrators. We applied to grants. We got the Provost Undergraduate Research Award. We did make $17,000 for our project. But compared to other groups, our funding was very small. Other groups received money from major corporations."
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