This year 10 students started the iGEM USTC Software team: Chen Liao, Zheng Wang, Kun Jiang, Jue Wang, Luojun Wang, Yubo Qi, Zhaoyi Li, Zhengda He, Shangyu Luo and Mort Yao. There are only 8 of us in the picture, while the only female team member, Jue Wang was in Beijing engaging for her TOEFL exam, and Shangyu Luo had gone to Hong Kong for studying in The University of Hong Kong as an exchange student. What a pity! But they will join us at the iGEM 2010 Jamboree.

USTC has formed two IGEM teams this year, one wet lab team and one dry lab team. As many students majoring in biology was attracted to the wet lab team, our team consists of students from other departments, such as Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science and so on. Thanks to our instructors Hao Jiang and Zhaofeng Luo, with their professional instruction, we are guided to decide the project plan, design and implementation.

About iGEM@USTC

The iGEM Team of USTC are the combination of the exact tradition of USTC and the exact vitality of the young. Rigorous daily schoolwork has provided the team members with a solid foundation of basic knowledge, and an innovative spirit enables us to stand on the frontier of the modern science.

In 2007, Jian Zhan, Bo Ding, Rui Ma, Xiaoyu Ma, Yun Zhao, Ziqing Liu and Xiaofeng Su, guided by Prof. Haiyan Liu, Prof. Jiarui Wu and Prof. Zhonghuai Hou, won the "Best Foundational Technology Prize" and a Gold Medal, with the project [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/USTC "Extensible Logic Circuit in Bacteria"].

In 2008, Xunyao Wu, He Shen, Genxin Liu, Jia Liu, Binjie Xu, Yanting Xue, Yu Chen, Zhen Xu, Bo Ding and Jian Zhan, guided by Prof. Haiyan Liu, won a Silver Medal, with the project "Artificial Multi-cellular Self-organization System".

In 2009, Hao Jiang, Li Xing, Hao Wu, Zongxiao He, Danqian Liu, Chao Li, Jiayi Dou, Hanyu Lu, Hao Zhou and Bing Wu, guided by Zhaofeng Luo, Jian Zhan, Jiong Hong and Xiaoxiao Ma, won a Gold Medal, with the project "E. coli Automatic Directed Evolution Machine (E.ADEM)".

In 2009 we also formed a software team for the first time. Wei Pan, Yuwei Cui, Jiahao Li, Yu He and Xiaomo Yao, guided by Bo Ding, also won a Gold Medal, with the Project "Automatic Biological Circuit Design (ABCD)".

Since last year we have accumulated some experience from the project of Automatic Biological Circuit Design (ABCD), we expect to develop a synthetic biology game this time. The game aims at teaching non-biologists how to design biological systems so that players can compete to improve their designs in order to help biologists create the best engineered machines!

For more information, go to [http://biotech.ustc.edu.cn/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=26 USTC iGEM Forum].

About USTC

• Message from the President

A university is the important assurance of maintaining belief, developing science and culture. It is a significant symbol of the level of civilization achieved by a nation.

• USTC Today

The University of Science and Technology of China is a new type of university established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) after the founding of People's Republic of China. The establishment of the University is aimed at fostering high-level personnel of science and technology absolutely necessary for the development of the national economy, national defense construction, and education in science and technology. The University was founded in Beijing in September of 1958. Mr. Guo Moruo is the first president of the University...

• History of USTC

"Pooling the entire strength of the CAS for the development of USTC and combining the institutes of the CAS with the departments at USTC" "Studying hard and excelling in both integrity and specialty"USTC was established in Beijing in September, 1958 under the presidential leadership of Guo Moruo. The establishment was hailed as "a major event in the history of Chinese science and education"...

For more information, please visit [http://en.ustc.edu.cn/ http://en.ustc.edu.cn/] (in English) and [http://www.ustc.edu.cn/ http://www.ustc.edu.cn/] (in Chinese).