The current status of our project can be found on our wiki. We are looking forward to your visit!
Welcome on the website of the 2017 iGEM team Bielefeld-CeBiTec!
Synthetic biology is the newest development in the field of biology and promises solutions to some of the most challenging problems of our time. This year, 14 students from Bielefeld University from different fields of study will participate in the “internatonal Genetically Engineered Machine” (iGEM) competition. iGEM is a nonprofit competition for students from all around the world. It is the most renowned competition in the field of synthetic biology and unique in its form. Every year around 300 teams from all around the world participate in the iGEM competition with their own projects and present their results in Boston in front of an international jury. Projects range from solutions for the climate change to biological solutions for IT problems to arts projects.
The iGEM Team 2017 from Bielefeld consists of 14 young and dedicated Bachelor´s and Master´s students studying Biochemistry, Molecular Cell Biology, Molecular Biotechnology, Bioinformatics and Genome Research, Cognitive Informatics and Informatics for the Natural Sciences. Driven by interdisciplinarity, great experience in different areas of biology as well as high levels of passion and motivation we will work hard to finish our project successfully. The team is supervised by Professor Dr. Jörn Kalinowski and Professor Dr. Kristian Müller and by Boas Pucker and Julian Droste, who participated in iGEM themselves in 2014. This year the team from Bielefeld is already participating for the eighth time. Successes from the last years teams include first runner up and European champion, prices for the best environmental project, best presentation as well as best human practice. Furthermore, every team from Bielefeld was able to win a gold medal.
This year the team is working on the extension of the genetic code to increase its potential. An extended genetic code would enable the translational incorporation of non-canonical amino acids in proteins. This project would open many new doors for new developments in the field of synthetic biology, for example for the development of new antibiotics or for new methods for protein purification. To successfully participate, teams do not only have to present good scientific work, but also a convincing overall concept for their projects. Therefore, teams have to deal with a variety of different aspects regarding their projects, such as the benefits for society or biosafety. We are also still looking for corporate sponsors. This year we also started a crowdfunding campaign to allow fans and interested people to support us. Companies, but also everyone interested, can contact us at info[at]igem-bielefeld.de
Information about the iGEM teams of previous years are available here.
