Gold medal Imperial student team celebrate success at International Genetically Engineered Machines competition

Three top prizes for Imperial bioengineers and life scientists<em> - News</em>

By Danielle Reeves
Monday 17 November 2008

Nine Imperial undergraduates are celebrating this week after winning a gold medal and two additional top prizes at the 2008 International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition held at MIT in the USA.

The Imperial team, consisting of students from Bioengineering and Life Sciences, won their prizes for a four month project in which they designed and developed genetically engineered bacterial 'machines' which can produce self-assembling materials for use in clothing and medical applications.

The iGEM team from Imperial has been working since July this year to develop a method of modifying small harmless soil bacteria called Bacillus subtilis, so that they can produce materials such as cellulose, an organic compound normally found in the cell walls of plants, on command and in a pre-determined pattern. The team's idea is that once the cellulose has been produced by the bacteria it will knit together, or 'self assemble', into a required shape, for use in a number of different applications from making three dimensional scaffolds for tissue engineering to growing biodegradable clothes.

Student Krupa Hirani at work on the biofabricator project

The iGEM competition is an international celebration of students' achievements in synthetic biology, an emerging field in which engineers work with molecular bioscientists to produce biologically-based engineering parts, by modifying bacterial DNA. In Boston last weekend the iGEM team presented the work they'd carried out to an international panel of judges, in a grand final that attracted 84 undergraduate teams from universities in 21 different countries.

The Imperial students won a gold medal for their technical excellence of their project. The Imperial team also won the prize for the best manufacturing-themed project in the competition, and the prize for the best new 'part' for their genetically modified Bacillus subtilis bacteria.

Professor Paul Freemont, Head of Imperial's Division of Molecular Biosciences and one of the iGEM team's academic supervisors, congratulated the team on their success, saying:

Imperial's participation in the iGEM competition has gone from strength to strength each year since it was set up. I'm especially proud of the recognition this year's team received for their comprehensive work with the Bacillus subtilis bacteria which is a new addition to the field of synthetic biology. Their work sets up other engineers and life scientists from around the world to use this harmless bacteria as a chassis for other synthetic biology applications."

Professor Richard Kitney from Imperial's Department of Bioengineering, fellow supervisor of the team, added: "Our team has performed brilliantly and it's fantastic that we did so well when faced with competition from other leading university teams from the UK and around the world."

Krupa Hirani, a third year undergraduate student in the Department of Bioengineering, one of the iGEM team members, explained more about the Imperial team's successful project:

"We have designed a system where large numbers of bacteria would be swimming around normally in the lab until a blue light is shone onto them in a particular shape," she says. "The bacteria in the blue light would then stop swimming around and produce a material, which would self-assemble into the pre-designed shape created by the blue light."

Dr Geoff Baldwin from Imperial's Division of Molecular Biosciences, one of the team's advisors adds: "Depending on the material and conditions chosen, the final product could be an elastin scaffold for tissue engineering that is just a few millimetres across, or a bacterial cellulose product grown directly into full-size clothes."

Although the students have not produced a full final working version of the bacterial biofabricator, they have successfully created a system where they can stop bacteria swimming around using a blue light stimulus, and have obtained videos of the biological processes involved in the stop mechanism. They have also shown that the bacteria can produce the biological material in a pre-determined shape as desired, but more work needs to be done to stabilise this process in Bacillus subtilis bacteria.

Professors Freemont and Kitney, lead scientists at Imperial's synthetic biology laboratory, say that they plan to ensure the students' work is carried forward, with more research being carried out into producing a biofabricator based on Bacillus subtilis.

The iGEM team consists of five bioengineers, two biochemists, one biotechnologist and one biologist, plus four advisors and two professors. This is the third year that the international iGEM competition has been run by MIT, and the third year Professors Freemont and Kitney have taken an Imperial team to the finals.

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