“We beat some really good teams” says Mayi Arcellana-Panlilio, PhD, one of the faculty advisors to the iGEM team. “This is the best showing UCalgary has ever had in the competition.” UCalgary’s iGem team is made up of 11 students from the Faculties of Medicine, Science and Engineering, and relies on the expertise from all the disciplines. Their winning project genetically modified bacteria and used it to develop a biosensor to monitor toxins in oil sands tailings ponds. They believe their project could make it faster and cheaper to test for contamination than current methods.
“We are very proud to have represented our university and shown all of the world what we can do,” says Robert Mayall a student in the Bachelor of Health Sciences Program. He says the team took a few days off and has already started planning for next year’s competition.
So what is the plan for next year? Mayall says they may focus on optimizing the biosensor and exploring how to harness bacteria to transform the toxins so that they become less harmful.
What is iGem?
The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) is an undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition. Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools over the summer, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells.