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Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Biochemcial Engineering students win first UK Bio-Hackathon

14 July 2016

The Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø student team competing in the 2016 International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) Synthetic Biology competition has enjoyed early success this year, with members of the team winning the UK's first 'Bio-Hackathon' event hosted by Cambridge University.

Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Biochemcial Engineering students win first UK Bio-Hackathon

The Bio-Hackathon event asked 50 participants to tackle global challenges using synthetic biology. Hana Janebdar and Pablo Lubroth are students on the MSc Biochemial Engineering programme at Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Biochemical Engineering Department and members of the 2016 Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø iGEM team. Their winning Bio-Hackathon project was to develop software for so-called 'cloud experimentation' to enable synthetic biologists to remotely design, exchange and create synthetic gene constructs. Their projected was selected as the winner by investors, VCs, start-up founders and academics at the 2016 Technology Ventures Conference, Cambridge.

Great early win

Reflecting on their success, Hana Janebdar commented "This is a great early win for the Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø iGEM team which we hope to use as a platform for more succes at the iGEM finals event in October". Pablo Lubroth, who is also Treasurer and Sponsorship Director of Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Entrepreneurs Society, said, "We are thrilled to win the first UK Bio-Hackathon. It's great that our MSc programme and Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Biochemical Engineering supported our participation and recognises the key role of entrepreneurship and synthetic biology in the modern biotech industry".

iGEM is an annual student synthetic biology competition which started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2004. Since its inception iGEM has grown from five participating US universities into an international competition spanning over 300 universities from across the world.

Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Biochemical Engineering has hosted Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø iGEM teams since 2009, harnessing the department's position as a centre of excellence in industrial application of synthetic biology. This year the Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Faculty of Engineering Science and Department of Biochemical Engineering is again supporting Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø participation in iGEM.

Dr Darren N. Nesbeth, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Biochemical Engineering, coordinates the team's efforts and commented, "Two spinout companies have so far been founded from Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø iGEM teams and we expect more to follow. Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø iGEM students continue to thrive due to the excellent support my colleagues provide here at Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Biochemical Engineering and we are elated at the early success of this year's team."

Dr Darren Nesbeth, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Department of Biochemical Engineering