UCL: Synthetic biology team takes a gold medal

A team of UCL students has won a gold medal in a synthetic biology design competition for undergraduates across the globe.

The team, drawn from a number of departments at UCL, won the gold medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM), an annual, undergraduate synthetic biology design competition run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

This result builds on UCL’s success in 2009, when the student team took a silver in the first year UCL entered the competition.

The UCL team, Project Hypoxon, set out to reduce the financial and environmental cost of manufacturing medicines by genetically re-programming the E. coli cells in which biopharmaceuticals are made. E. coli cultures are currently controlled by the addition of chemicals, to prompt drug production.

Project Hypoxon aimed to allow the cells to be triggered without the need to add chemicals, by making simple changes in the environment, such as low oxygen levels, or changed temperature, by constructing a synthetic gene network in the cells.

The technology could ultimately be deployed in commercial E. coli strains used in protein drug manufacturing to boost productivity and reduce costs.