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Techers Excel in Synthetic-Biology Competition
November 13, 2008
 A team of five Caltech undergraduates placed third in this year's international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition at MIT. Eighty-five teams from around the world participated in the synthetic-biology research competition, and winners were determined based on online documentation, oral presentations, and poster presentations.
At the beginning of last summer, each team was given a kit of biological parts from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. They used these and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells.
The team of Caltech undergraduates designed and built a gut microorganism that integrates sophisticated engineered functions into a single progenitor cell that will differentiate into specialized cells to treat a suite of medical problems including vitamin deficiency, lactose intolerance, and microbial infections. The engineering of gut microorganisms for improved medical treatments is an especially exciting new research area. because the human gut houses over 100 times more bacterial cells than the rest of the body, and our gut flora play an important role in helping us digest complex nutrients, produce vitamins, and defend against pathogens, as well as in immune-system development.
Caltech team members included Fei Chen, Victoria Hsiao, Allen Lin, Robert Ovadia, and Doug Tischer, and the group was mentored by graduate students Josh Michener and Chase Beisel, as well as Christina Smolke, assistant professor of chemical engineering.
To learn more about iGEM, go to http://2008.igem.org/Main_Page, and for more on the Caltech project, go to http://2008.igem.org/Team:Caltech.
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