MSU’s iGEM team shines among the world’s best and brightest
November 13, 2006
During June of 2006, the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department introduced its newest advancement to ABE students, synthetic biology. A team of graduate and undergraduate students came together, with an assortment of engineering faculty, to prepare for the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition at M.I.T. Cambridge, Mass., where the team was awarded Honorable Mention.
In five short months, the team came together and designed, implemented, tested and successfully built a working hydrogen detector that uses e-coli as the host. In addition they also had to document all aspects of development and preparation on the team’s wiki site at MIT, show results, send DNA their DNA machine to MIT for validation and prepare and defend a presentation on their design. They also had to design an iGEM team t-shirt to wear during the competition.
These students have distinguished themselves as the first generation of engineers at MSU who know how to do synthetic biology. The team ventured into the unfamiliar competition and demonstrated a high level of knowledge and skill against 37 other teams from around the world.
Teams competing in the 2006 competition included: MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Brown University, Penn State, University of Tokyo, Chiba University, Imperial College, Cambridge University, University of Slovenia and India Bangalore, just to name a few.
Team members had the opportunity to network with fellow competitors and faculty from some of the most highly accredited universities in the world.
“One interesting revelation came from Duke University; they wanted to see if they can use our design to measure their hydrogen fuel cell output,” said ABE faculty advisor, Filip To. “They are having a hard time measuring current output; and if our machine can be incorporated into their design, they can measure the amount of hydrogen consumption of their machine, thus, output.”
The 2006 team consisted of, ABE graduate students: Brendan Flynn, Meng-Hsuan Ho and Robert Morris; ABE undergraduate students: Lauren Beatty, Joseph Chen, Courtney Harbin, Paul Kimbrough, Sam Pote, Scott Tran and Teri Vaughn; and faculty: Dr. Filip To (ABE), Dr. Din-Pow Ma (BChE), Dr. Bob Reese (ECE) and Dr. Todd French (ChE).
The development these students have made in synthetic biology is being opened up to the rest of the ABE department starting next semester. To anticipates starting a student interest group at MSU for synthetic biology in hopes to expand the program.
“I know our students were probably disappointed by not placing their time at the competition, but as faculty advisor,” said To, “I am both excited about the future and extremely proud of this group of young people.”
Note: The MSU iGEM team was sponsored by the Bagley College of Engineering and CAVS (Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems) in financial preparation for the MIT iGEM competition.