December 03, 2021 | Melissa Weckerle | UCSC
For the second year in a row, a team of UC Santa Cruz undergraduates won a gold medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Jamboree. The annual competition brings together student teams from around the world to present synthetic biology projects that aim to address pressing global issues.
UCSC’s iGEM team, one of 370 participating in this year’s event, developed a system called Progenie that’s designed to target and eliminate a toxic gene found in Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, a family of bacteria responsible for some of the most severe forms of food poisoning. Their method provides an effective alternative to the antibiotics commonly used in agriculture, which not only destroy helpful as well as harmful microbes, but are also responsible in part for the sharp rise in drug-resistant bacteria.
Co-captains Stephen Hwang, now a first-year biomolecular engineering and bioinformatics graduate student, and Torrey Brownell, a fourth-year biology student, explained that their team was inspired by a shared interest in environmental health and biology and a desire to address issues affecting the local agriculture industry.
Read “UCSC team scores gold for second straight year at iGEM synthetic biology competition“