iGEM is a competition that provides an opportunity to explore synthetic biology through an independent research project while under the supervision of experienced university researchers. The project does not only consist of a research part but also consists of finding financial support and reaching out to the public about the project and synthetic biology. The competition is a means for us student
s to grow as individuals by developing our academic experience, teamwork and communication. In the Gothenburg team we are students from Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg with various academical backgrounds. Together with teams from Linköping, Lund, Uppsala and Stockholm we represent Sweden in iGEM. The objective of synthetic biology is to create microorganisms (for example yeast and bacteria) with new functions that normally cannot be found in said organism, as well as developing techniques and methods for enabling this process. Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field where knowledge from e.g. biology, chemistry, mathematics and engineering are necessary to combine. One of the important parts of the participation in iGEM is to produce a so called BioBrick which is added to iGEM’s BioBrick library. These constructs are a standard way of constructing genetic material in synthetic biology where the parts are well characterized and easy to combine to create new systems.
