Three teams from Tianjin University (TJU) have achieved remarkable success at the 2024 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition finals held in Paris on October 26. Competing against over 400 teams worldwide, TJU teams secured two gold medals, one silver medal, and a special award nomination.
The iGEM Competition, initiated by MIT in 2003, stands as the premier academic competition in synthetic biology. It integrates multiple disciplines including life sciences, mathematics, engineering, information science, and art design. The competition has garnered attention from prestigious publications such as Nature, Science, Scientific American, and The Economist.
TJU's involvement in iGEM traces back to 2007 when Prof. Yuan Yingjin, an Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, recognizing the competition's potential for nurturing synthetic biology talent, organized China's first iGEM workshop and a training program for Asian team advisors. Since then, TJU teams have consistently earned gold medals, contributing significantly to China's synthetic biology talent pool.
This year's standout performance came from the TJUSLS-China team from the School of Life Sciences, winning gold and receiving a nomination for Best Improved Part. Their project focused on PET plastic degradation, developing a mutant enzyme system through random mutation strategies and Markov transfer frequency matrix modeling. The team's innovative approach to plastic biodegradation showcases the school's commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration.
The iGEM Tianjin 2024 team, comprising undergraduates from the School of Chemical Engineering and Technology and the College of Intelligence and Computing, also clinched gold. Their project addressed space exploration challenges by engineering yeast strains capable of synthesizing valuable compounds under different conditions. Their engineered yeast produces melatonin under blue light exposure to improve astronauts' sleep patterns and safranal in the presence of galactose to enhance oxygen utilization efficiency.
In their debut appearance, the TJUSX team, a cross-institutional collaboration between TJU Zhejiang Institute (Shaoxing) and Shaoxing University, earned a bronze medal. Their project, "Spidey Microbe," developed a drug delivery platform for Parkinson's disease treatment, combining adhesion systems with metabolic network predictions.
These achievements underscore TJU's excellence in synthetic biology education and research, demonstrating the university's successful approach to interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation in addressing global challenges.
By Eva Yin
