Team:BGU Israel/Human Practice/University Outreach

The Synthetic Biology field is developing rapidly and considered being highly innovative. In order to spread the word of Synthetic Biology, our team organized a special medical panel of experts to present our project and cutting edge biological research. The well-known speakers came from various backgrounds such as: metabolic syndrome specialists, personal-medicine physicians, nutritionists and more. The panel took place during the largest entrepreneurial conference in Israel, Innovation 2014, which drew over two thousand high-tech personnel, entrepreneurs, CEOs and other public figures such as: Bank Hapoalim Ltd, TEVA, IBM, HP and more

Our goal was to promote the discourse about our team's project amongst experts and other stakeholders. The title of the panel was: The Metabolic Syndrome - Could Synthetic Biology Provide a Breakthrough Solution? At first, we introduced the fascinating field of Synthetic Biology and the iGEM competition. As a case study, we have discussed the 'glowing tree', the idea of an Israeli startup company, "Genome Compiler", led by Dr. Omri Amirav Drori. The vision behind it was the possibility to create light by taking the gene responsible of creating light at Glowworms, implementing it in plants and use it for a green energy efficient streetlight.

The main part of the panel was the discussions about the current solutions and treatments of the Metabolic Syndrome, and how our project could fit in and stand for a better treatment by using Synthetic Biology tools. It was highly important for us to expose our project and get feedbacks from experts who deal with the subject on a daily basis.

We concluded the panel with discussing the new 'personal medicine' approach, and how it can go alongside with genetic engineering - both techniques that will change the way we think about medicine in the near future.

The panel was a great success. Based on many positive feedbacks, we felt that a lot of people were inspired by the field and by our project. We were happy to share our thoughts with a multi-background diverse audience and professional speakers.

Although the iGEM competition exists since 2003, last year was the first time Ben-Gurion University has sent a team to participate, which eventually was the first team from Israel to ever reach the World Championships at MIT. We, the iGEM BGU 2014 team, are setting a goal to continue the great work of the 2013 team in promoting the iGEM competition among university leaders. Our vision is to create a tradition of teams from Ben Gurion University that will compete every year and help implementing this important field of synthetic. Therefore, we have met with Ben-Gurion University president Prof. Rivka Carmi, presented our 2014 iGEM project and discussed the importance of iGEM for both the university and the students. We were thrilled as the president was deeply interested and provided us with a significant support.

For the same cause we met with the university Rector, Prof. Zvi Hacohen; Dean of students, Prof. Moshe Kaspi; Dean of Natural Sciences Faculty, Prof. Jiwchar Ganor; Dean of Engineering Sciences Faculty, Prof. Joseph Kost and Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, Prof. David Newman. We also met with the Spokesman of the university Mr Amir Rozenblit, and the Director of Donor and Associate Affairs Mrs. Jill Ben Dor, they all were very impressed and supportive.