iGEM 2022 - Colourectal - We are battling colorectal cancer

The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to education and competition, the advancement of synthetic biology, and the development of an open community and collaboration.

iGEM began in January 2003 as an independent study course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where students developed biological devices to make cells blink. This course became a summer competition with 5 teams in 2004 and continued to grow to 13 teams in 2005; it expanded to 300 teams in 2016, reaching 42 countries and over 5,000 participants.

The iGEM competition is an annual, worldwide, synthetic biology event aimed at undergraduate university students, as well as high school and graduate students. Multidisciplinary teams work all summer long to build genetically engineered systems using standard biological parts called BioBricks. iGEM teams work inside and outside the lab, creating sophisticated projects that strive to create a positive contribution to their communities and the world.

The competition builds up to the "Grand Jamboree" in Paris, where all the teams come together to present their projects, establish international contacts and have a good time!

Dear reader,

by this moment you know all about what our project entails. However, you still don’t know who these ten mysterious people on the group picture are! Hereby introducing: the Wageningen University & Research iGEM 2022 Team!

This years’ team consists of 11 students. Eight of us will be found mainly in the lab, whereas Josia, Ally and Lucia will work on their computers to model our project. Our team consists of a healthy mix of Dutchies, a Belgian, a Spaniard. All of us are master students, studying either Biotechnology, Molecular Life Sciences or Molecular Biology.

Last year December we first met up to discuss what iGEM entails and what we would be getting ourselves into. After some months of brainstorming and researching several projects, we decided on working towards the efficient diagnosis of colorectal cancer.

Over the last months we’ve all been working hard towards achieving our goal: Creating a probiotic bacteria that can colonize the colon. There it will recognize specifically and locally the presence of tumor formation, and as a reaction it will warn the user by coloring their stool. Many many pages of literature have been read, genetic constructs were designed and built, stakeholders and other experts have been visited and overloaded with questions and feedback. We already presented our progress at many occasions and all the feedback we gathered was used to further establish our project, to create an as strong as possible project!

In October, the "Grand Jamboree" will take place in Paris, where all teams will get together to present their ideas. This means that there will be over 300 teams that we all aim to beat! WUR teams historically perform very well and even won the second price at several occasions, we hope to match or even exceed this result!

Thank you for your interest!

Kind regards,

Bas, Sonia, Arthur, Menno, Sarah, Max, Lucia, Josia, Marte, Ally & Koen