The New York Times is running a long piece on one team's efforts in the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition at MIT:

Imagine!

• Replacing nonrenewable energy sources with solar-powered bacteria
• Curing diseases with engineered microbes
• Producing new biochemicals and materials in cells

These are some of the goals of synthetic biology, a new field that seeks to design and build novel biological systems to accomplish specific tasks.

Test article

Program dates: June 1-August 7, 2010

Application form  Application deadline: February 15, 2010 (applications must be received by this date!)

On August 12 visitors and researchers from around the SF Bay Area packed into the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) seminar room. They weren’t coming to see a renowned scientist or the director of a Federal research office. They came to hear the story of six unassuming and slightly shy high school researchers who spent their summer in a biofuels lab.

Members of SynBERC’s Student Leadership Council (SLC) visited Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) on Monday, April 20 to host a summit on synthetic biology. The meeting was designed to spark interest among PVAMU students and faculty, as well as highlight the synbio research activities already going on in the Cuero Lab.

The Student Leadership Council (SLC) had its third industry visit in coincidence with the Fall Retreat at MIT on September 14, 2009. Kevin Madden of Microbia (http://www.microbia.com) generously offered to host us for a company tour and presentation/Q&A.  Microbia is a leader in industrial biotechnology to create renewable sources of products that either displace petrochemical-derived chemicals, or create novel biomaterials with commercially desirable properties.

SynBERC was a proud sponsor the fourth annual Bears Breaking Boundaries contest at UC Berkeley, which encourages student teams to propose the next generation of research, education, and service activities on the UC Berkeley campus. Out of 146 submissions received, a total of 33 student proposals were funded at $85,000. SynBERC helped to encourage and adjudicate synbio-related technical and policy proposals. Among this year’s winners:

“SynBERC’s Student Leadership Council (SLC) has established an excellent, inclusive organization which works well across the laboratories and disciplines of the Center.  Students utilize tools such as web cams and video conferencing to maintain communications among the laboratories. The SLC is providing leadership to the ERC on the issues of biological risk, ethics, and safety and plans to expand that leadership to the larger community.”--from the NSF Site Visit Team’s 2009 Site Report.

July 26, 2009: Synthetic biology portends big changes in our lives by ushering in a dizzying array of applications in everything from medicine to biofuels, environmental remediation to agriculture. Though many of these applications haven’t yet come on line, researchers are hard at work to synthesize new drugs and devices made from genetic parts.