| IGEM | |
|---|---|
| Date(s) | 5-7 November 2011 |
| Location(s) | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, USA With additional events worldwide |
| Inaugurated | 2003 |
| Most recent | Present |
The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is a worldwide Synthetic Biology competition aimed at undergraduate university students.
Contents |
Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools over the summer, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. Randy Rettberg, an engineer who has worked for companies including Apple, Sun and BBN,[1] is the director of the iGEM competition.
One of the aims of the competition is to attempt to build simple biological systems from standard, interchangeable parts and operate them in living cells.
The iGEM competition facilitates this by providing a library of standardized parts (called BioBrick standard biological parts) to students, and asking them to design and build genetic machines with them. Student teams can also submit their own BioBricks. Successful projects produce cells that exhibit new and unusual properties by engineering sets of multiple genes together with mechanisms to regulate their expression.
Information about BioBrick standard biological parts, and a toolkit to make and manipulate them, is provided by the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, or simply, the Registry. This is a core resource for the iGEM program, and one that has been evolving rapidly to meet the needs of the program.
Beyond just building biological systems, broader goals of iGEM include:
iGEM's dual aspects of self-organization and imaginative manipulation of genetic material have demonstrated a new way to arouse student interest in modern biology and to develop their independent learning skills.
iGEM developed out of student projects conducted during MIT's Independent Activities Periods in 2003 and 2004.[2][3] Later in 2004, a competition with five teams from various schools was held. In 2005, teams from outside the United States took part for the first time.[4] Since then iGEM has continued to grow, with 130 teams entering in 2010.[5]
Because of this increasing size, in 2011 the competition was split into three regions: Europe, the Americas, and Asia (though teams from Africa and Australia also entered via "Europe" and "Asia" respectively).[6] Regional jamborees will occur during October; and some subset of teams attending those events will be selected to advance to the World Championship at MIT in November.[7]
| Winner | Finalist | Finalist | Finalist | Finalist | Finalist | Complete Results | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Washington | Imperial (2nd) | ZJU China (3rd) | MIT (4th) | iGEM 2011 | ||
| 2010 | Slovenia | Peking (2nd) | BCCS Bristol (3rd) | Cambridge | Imperial | TU Delft | iGEM 2010 |
| 2009 | Cambridge | Heidelberg (2nd) | Valencia (3rd) | Freiburg Bioware | Groningen | Imperial | iGEM 2009 |
| 2008 | Slovenia | Freiburg (2nd) | Caltech (3rd) | Harvard | NYMU Taipei | UC Berkeley | iGEM 2008 |
| 2007 | Peking | Paris | Slovenia | UC Berkeley | UCSF | USTC | iGEM 2007 [note 1] |
| 2006 | Slovenia | Imperial (2nd) | Princeton (3rd) | iGEM 2006 | |||
| 2005 | Years prior to 2006 had no specific winners | iGEM 2005 | |||||
| 2004 | IAP 2004, SBC 2004 | ||||||
| 2003 | IAP 2003 | ||||||