U of O competed against 165 schools at world championships
NOV. 5–7, THE University of Ottawa’s International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team won a gold medal at the first-ever World Championship Jamboree, an iGEM competition, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), beating out 165 other schools for the title.
iGEM is an undergraduate competition in synthetic biology. Students are responsible for working with the Registry of Standard Biological Parts to design, build, and operate biological systems that create functions in living cells. The regional competition was in Indianapolis, where the U of O placed in the top three.
“The way it is divided up now is in regions [of] North America, Europe, and Asia,” said Ian Roney, a third-year student in biomedical science at the U of O. “If you do well enough [in your region], you qualify for the world championship at MIT.”
iGEM began in January 2003 as a course at MIT. Eight years later, iGEM saw 165 teams from around the world competing in the championship.
“It is a really great feeling to know that you are in the top third of all the teams in North America,” said Matt Orton, fifth-year student in biopharmaceutical science at the U of O. “Every noteworthy institution competes in this competition.”
The U of O’s iGEM club is required to fulfil a number of criteria beyond laboratory work, including presentations to the competition judges and maintaining their website.
“There are different aspects of the project,” said Roney. “There is a poster presentation, a verbal presentation, and the actual lab research project. Our team was awarded a gold medal this year … based on achieving all criteria with excellence.”
In addition to winning the gold medal, the U of O has changed the way the competition runs—they have discovered a new way for teams to work with the registry, a collection of genetic parts that can be used to build synthetic biology devices and systems.
“Part of our project was optimizing an assembly method for putting these parts together because the older method had several issues associated with it,” said Orton. “We wanted to improve on that assembly method—that was the main part of our project and we demonstrated that this was a successful method, [which] was faster and more cost efficient. For iGEM teams, this is a game changer.”
iGEM teams are not just composed of science students, but also include engineering, arts, and computer science students. The iGEM program has also allowed students to get hands-on experience with research.
“In most science programs, you don’t get any lab experience until fourth year, and with iGEM, I was doing lab work after first year,” said Orton. “It is a great way to get introduced to research.”
Orton explained the challenge of establishing a project that is feasible, interesting, and contributes to scientific knowledge that can be accomplished in a four month time span is difficult, but rewarding.
“The experience really changed my perception of what research is,” said Roney. “The real work environment in a research lab is a lot different from inside a university school lab. It is really enjoyable.”
Those interested in joining the iGEM team can email [email protected]. Work from the 2011 competition can be seen here.
—Christopher Radojewski
