The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is a worldwide competition in the field of synthetic biology, where teams from universities around the world come to compete. The competition started in 2004 at M.I.T. as a course, expanded into a competition around 2006, and by 2017 there were 300 teams worldwide.
As part of the competition, a group of undergraduate and graduate students have the unique opportunity to come up with a research proposal that interests them. They are also in charge of raising the required funds, planning the appropriate experiments, conducting them in the lab, and presenting the project in the final international competition. All this – with the help of faculty members and graduate students that guide them through the process.
The first Israeli team was established in 2012 at the Technion under the guidance of Professor Roee Amit; the team won a gold medal in the regional competition. Since then, many more teams have participated. won various awards, and even registered patents.
In our group, we strongly believe in iGEM as a platform to not only introduce undergrads to the rigors of research, but also in the power of play to produce interesting new research and synthetic biology applications. All Technion iGEM groups have produced such viable novel research directions.
Technion iGEM – past teams
iGEM Technion 2023 – UTBye
Achievement:
iGEM Gold Medal
Nominated for Best Best Integrated Human Practices, Best Presentation
iGEM Technion 2022 – Angel Roots
Achievement:
iGEM Gold Medal
Best Measurement award
Best Biomanufacturing Project award
TOP 10 Overgrad Project
Nominated for Best Wiki, Best Presentation, Best Integrated Human Practices, Best Education, Inclusivity, and Best New Composite Part
iGEM Technion 2020 – ACT
Achievement:
iGEM Gold Medal
Nominated for Best Inclusion award
iGEM Technion 2019 – BeeFree
Achievement:
iGEM Gold Medal
Nominated for Best Education and Public Engagement Project
Patent: Bee-less honey – US20220117277A1
iGEM Technion 2017 – ToleGen
Achievement:
iGEM Gold Medal
iGEM Technion 2016 – S.Tar
Achievement:
iGEM Gold Medal
Paper: Designing Bacterial Chemotactic Receptors Guided by Photonic Femtoliter Well Arrays for Quantifiable, Label-Free Measurement of Bacterial Chemotaxis, Davidov, T., Granik, N., Zahran, S., Leonard, H., Adir, I., Elul, O., Fried, T., Gil, A., Mayo, B., Ohayon, S. and Sarig, S., 2019. ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, 5(2), pp.603-612.
iGEM Technion 2015 – Be Bold
Achievement:
Best New Application Project
iGEM Gold Medal
Nominated for Best Applied Design Project
Nominated for Best Presentation
Nominated for Best New Basic Part
Patent: Composition and method for treating androgen-dependent disorders – US10240132B2
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iGEM Technion 2014
Achievement:
iGEM Gold Medal
iGEM Technion 2012
Achievement:
iGEM Gold Medal