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From 2010.igem.org

What is iGEM?

iGEM stands for international Genetic Engineering Machine and is a contest held by MIT

Student teams are given a kit of biological parts (DNA) 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. Teams present their work at the iGEM Jamboree held each year on MITs campus in Cambridge, MA and compete for awards in several categories including energy, health/medicine, and food.

For more information visit the Official Website.

What is Synthetic Biology?

iGEM addresses the following questions:

Can simple biological systems be built from standard,
interchangeable parts and operated in living cells?

Or

Is biology simply too complicated to be engineered in the way that
mechanical and electrical systems are designed and constructed?

The answer is that biological systems CAN be built from standard parts! This is an approach to genetic engineering called Synthetic Biology. The primary objective of this field is to abstract the long, complicated sequences of nucleotides found in the DNA of cells into higher order 'interchangeable parts'. Just as you can piece together a computer, scientists want to piece together biological components to create living machines. Synthetic biology also encompasses the creation of standards for these parts.

This field is young and has great potential for both solving some of the most impending problems of our time and the potential for substantial misuse. With such a promising technology it is very important that safety guidelines are followed to prevent the latter.

Follow us to our safety page to see the precautions we take in our research in our Safety Section.