Students of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have won gold at the 2010 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) last month, with scientific breakthrough made.
This year, as many as 130 teams and about 2,000 participants from universities all over the world took part in the iGEM Competition, which is the world’s largest-scale international student competition in the field of Synthetic Biology.
HKUST first took part in this Competition in 2008, when they won bronze. Last year the HKUST Team came back with a silver.
The HKUST Team did even better this year. Most of the 14 team members were Year 1 students in various disciplines – Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physics, Molecular Biomedical Sciences, as well as Chemical and Bioproduct Engineering. There were also 5 advisors who were more senior students who have taken part in a previous iGEM Competition.
Under the supervision of their supervisor – Prof King Chow of the Division of Life Science – the students spent months conducting research, and came up with an interspecies quorum-quenching system in which non-pathogenic Lactobacillus could sense and reduce the virulence of Staphylococcus aureus. As this model system is not expected to yield a strong selective pressure for the development of resistance, it would therefore be an attractive concept for preventive medicine.
Prof King Chow said that these students from different academic departments have made remarkable achievement – they started with no similar experience, and within just 8 to 9 months, they have selected their topic, carried out abundant research, and achieved superb results. He said that this is a good example of assimilating learning, research and extracurricular activities into a single pursuit, and the students have demonstrated an exemplary level of cooperation and team spirit.
Synthetic biology is a new way of applying biological sciences in our daily life. It merges knowledge and tools in various disciplines such as systems biology, genetic engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, information theories, physics, nanotechnology and computer simulation. At present, synthetic biology has applications in a variety of industries, including agriculture, energy, manufacturing and medicine.
For media enquiries, please feel free to contact :
Ross Lai
Tel: 2358 6306 / 9103 2928
Email: rosslai@ust.hk
Kit Yip
Tel: 2358 6313
Email: kityip@ust.hk
