Students representing various disciplines across the University, including the College of Engineering, Business Administration, LS&A, and Bioinformatics, participated in the 4th Annual iGEM (The International Genetically Engineered Machine) Jamboree. U-M’s team took third place in the category, Best Real World Application.

Members of the Chemical Engineering department including Professor Peter Woolf (faculty director), Professor Xiaoxia (Nina) Lin (faculty advisor), Alyssa Delke (junior), Chris Bauman (senior), along with over a dozen other students and faculty from across the university trekked to Cambridge, MA to present their project. Undergraduate ChE students interested in the competition should contact Professor Woolf (pwoolf@umich.edu)for more information.

Initiated in 2003, iGEM represents an early movement toward standardizing biological design and fabrication. At its core, iGEM is an attempt to show that simple biological systems can be built from standard, interchangeable parts and operated in living cells. To foster interest and competition among future technology leaders, the iGEM competition invites student teams to design and assemble engineered machines using advanced genetic components and technologies.

37 school teams from across the globe participated in iGEM 2006, more than doubling the participation in 2005.

Michigan took third place in the category, Best Real World Application for their project. The project focused on developing both software and experimental tools to aid in rapid design and prototyping of synthetic genetic circuits. One tool included the development of an integrated development environment (IDE) for drawing, modeling, and selecting novel genetic systems. A second tool developed by the team was a set of genetic tools that simplify the fabrication of stable genetic mutants in bacteria.

This year’s overall winning team at the 2006 Jamboree, from Slovinia, engineered human cells to modify their response of cells to bacterial infection to prevent sepsis.

In winter of 2007, Prof. Woolf and others will be leading an undergraduate course ChemE 496 / BME 499: Introduction to Synthetic Biology. (U-M Time Schedule Online)

For more information about the competition see the iGEM website (http://parts2.mit.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)