iGEM Blogpost Roundup
One evident advantage of this compressed evolution is the opportunity, at iGem, for young students to engage directly with the Edisons of synthetic biology, sharing big ideas, tricks of the trade, and free sandwiches with the likes of Tom Knight, Randy Rettberg, Drew Endy, Pam Silver, and George Church (to name a few). How motivating must that be?
iGEM is, at its core, an experiment. As the wiki says, the teams will “all specify, design, build, and test simple biological systems made from standard, interchangeable biological parts.” Of course, as there aren’t yet any standard, interchangeable biological parts, the students are inventing as they go. And inventing is slow, arduous work.
Some of the simplest and most interesting work work in human practices was from Peking University in Beijing, China. The team was interested in DIY biology and how easy it is for amateurs and hobbyists to obtain those supplies. They ordered a variety of typical molecular biology supplies like restriction enzymes and DNA purification kits to their homes from companies around China to see which would fulfill an order to a residential address.
I know I missed a ton, add more in the comments!
