Another Success for Slovenian Knowledge at the MIT University’s World Championship
[Translate to English:] Slovenska ekipa na odru avditorija univerze MIT s tremi od štirih osvojenih trofej. Člani ekipe (od leve), zgornja vrsta: Boštjan Pirš, Roman Jerala, Alja Oblak, Dušan Vučko, Tina Lebar, Uroš Zupančič, Vida Forstnerič, Urban Bezeljak, Miha Jerala, Anže Smole, Jan Lonzarić, Rok Gaber, spodnja vrsta: Zala Lužnik, Anja Golob, Maja Somrak, Lucija Kadunc ter Martin Stražar. Mentorji Mojca Benčina, Andreja Majerle in Miha Mraz ter študent Fedja Pavlovec se tekmovanja v ZDA niso udeležili.
November 5, 2012, Cambridge, MA, USA – The team of students from the University of Ljubljana and their mentors from the National Institute of Chemistry of the University of Ljubljana and the ENFIST Centre of Excellence have achieved excellent results at the world finals for research projects in the field of synthetic biology at one of the best world universities, MIT. With their project, they achieved first place in the field of health and medicine, first place for the best wiki presentation, first place for the best model and, in the final vote by the judges, achieved second place in joint ranking.
This is an exceptional success at a championship that more than 190 teams from all across the world applied to this year. A month ago at a regional championships, the Slovenian team qualified for the world finals at the MIT University among 62 teams that qualified at regional championships in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Eastern and Western Coasts of North America. Among those teams were teams from the best world universities, such as MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Cambridge, ETH, the elite league of C9 Chinese universities etc.
At the iGEM championship, the Slovenian teams were the most successful by far of all the teams, winning three of the six appearances for which they qualified for the finals five times. Surprisingly this year, only European teams were among the 4 finalists, even though the teams from MIT, Berkeley, Beijing and SJTU-Shanghai also appeared with very good projects. The final winner was, slightly surprisingly, the Groningen team from Nederland, which presented an innovative way of detecting the deterioration of meat with the help of synthetic biology.
The Slovenian team was composed of students of medicine, biotechnologists and computer science and information science. The team of mentors guided the students, introduced them to the techniques of research work and enabled work using the modern equipment of the National Institute of Chemistry and ENFIST CE.
In the project, the Slovenian team presented a new method of delivery and treatment with biological medicines, for which they developed a completely new type of genetic cell switch. By doing this, they solved a very important issue of the precise control of cell operation that is required for advanced methods of treatment. Based on the results of the project, they believe that with the help of such switches the cells could be used for storing information and for counters of various biological processes. During the preparation and development of the project, the team members consulted with medical experts at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana, prof. Zlatko Fras, prof. Mojca Matičič and prof. Dragica Smerke and presented the hepatitis C and the infarct as two examples of treatment, which are two of the more widespread diseases.
After the championship in Cambridge, MA, the team members and their mentors will visit some of the research organisations and companies in the USA. Next week, the team leader, prof. Roman Jerala and the European delegation of ERANET SynBio, will visit the leading performers in the field of synthetic biology in the USA with the purpose of transferring the model of successful development and cooperation with the industry in this high potential science to Europe. After returning to Slovenia, the project and the field of synthetic biology will be presented at numerous secondary schools across Slovenia within the Knowledge for Future (Znanje za prihodnost) project with the support of the European Structural Fund. For the innovative idea of the project, they submitted a patent application and they intend to continue the project in the direction of pre-clinical research in cooperation with medical experts and the National Institute of Chemistry and ENFIST CE.
The project of the Slovenian team is presented on the website: http://2012.igem.org/Team:Slovenia/Slovenian.
Website of the championship: http://2012.igem.org/World_Championship_Jamboree.
Photo of the team members at the MIT University championship
The members of the Slovenian iGEM2012 team at the MIT University, where the championship took place. Team members (from the left): Zala Lužnik, Lucija Kadunc, Roman Jerala, Anja Golob, Vida Forstnerič, Alja Oblak, Jan Lonzarić, Martin Stražar, Anže Smole, Maja Somrak, Miha Jerala, Tina Lebar, Uroš Zupančič, Urban Bezeljak, Dušan Vučko and Boštjan Pirš.