Team:TU Delft-Leiden

iGEM Team: TU Delft Leiden 2014

The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) is the premiere undergraduate synthetic biology competition. iGEM started in 2003 with a month-long course during MIT’s Independent Activities Period; the first year’s students designed biological systems to make cells blink.

This design course grew 5 teams in 2003 to 244 teams in 2014. The teams consist entirely of students and are guided by supervisors of different backgrounds. Working at their universities over the summer, teams design synthetically enhanced organisms. Each iGEM team must also make its own wiki page and work on fundraising, budget, public relations and human practice. Some teams also make their own gadget based on their synthetically enhanced organism.

In the first week of November, multi-disciplinary teams from around the world will meet in Boston to compete in the Jamboree. Their work will be presented to a large scientific community at the Hynes Convention Center.

This year, a team of 13 enthusiastic students, with diverse backgrounds, from TU Delft, Leiden University and Rotterdam University is aiming to bring biology and electronics closer together, resulting in a cool and necessary application. We will design and produce an Escherichia coli strain that can transport electrons and detect landmines as a final application.