Team:Edinburgh

• Bridging ideas and innovation in synthetic biology into reality, by developing the BRIDGE protocol as a markerless alternative for BioBrick insertion via homologous recombination.
• Fostering non-chemical means of communication between E. coli, by pairing light-producing and light-sensing BioBricks such that future teams may make use of them in a variety of novel applications.
• Examining synthetic biology as a way of thinking and the permeation of human aspects within, bridging the so-called 'divides' between disciplines and individuals.

"The engineering equivalent of Genetic Engineering is to get a bunch of concrete and steel, throw it into a river, and if you can walk across it, call it a bridge." - Simon Munnery, comedian.

Synthetic biology in general, and iGEM in particular, has long attempted to refine this process of "bridge-building". iGEM participants attempt to pave the way for future endeavours - the possibilities of building bridges instead of simply stumbling across them by chance, of using standardised bricks instead of having to quarry and hew individual stones, and of developing innovative new ways of creating bridges from scratch.

We think about synthetic biology differently now. The question is... how do you think?