When MIT scientists Drew Endy, Tom Knight, and Randy Rettberg held a month-long biological engineering program back in 2003, they probably never imagined that it would pave the way for the iGEM annual synthetic biology competition that has been going strong for more than two decades.
The iGEM — short for International Genetically Engineered Machines — competition began in 2004 with five teams of students jockeying to develop the most creative synthetic biology systems. Early winners made advances in DNA for information storage and biological photography.
Fast-forward to today, and iGEM has snowballed into a worldwide event. Last year’s competition involved nearly 400 teams from 41 countries. Thousands of participants, from high school students to graduate students and their faculty advisors, descended on Paris for the Grand Jamboree where awards were given out. And this year is even bigger. Recent awards have focused on innovations in infectious disease, therapeutic manufacturing to treat depression, and making environmentally sustainable rubber from dandelions.
iGEM is more than a global competition. Built on a virtuous circle model, each team contributes new genetic elements designed for the competition to an open source parts registry that all synthetic biologists can then use to accelerate design and experimentation for creating entirely new systems. After 20-plus years of iGEM competitions, the registry now holds more than 20,000 distinct parts. This is how iGEM has fueled synthetic biology innovation well beyond its own annual competition.
Here at Ansa, we are proud supporters of iGEM and participating teams. This year we are a gold sponsor of the competition, and we also provided high-quality DNA — up to 20 kb of clonal synthetic DNA — to 22 teams. Each team interested in our offer submitted an entry describing their project and why they thought they’d benefit from our unique ability to deliver long or highly complex DNA designs that most vendors reject. We chose teams based on novelty, impact, likelihood of experimental success, and their specific need for long or complex DNA.
Here’s a quick look at some of the compelling projects these teams are tackling:
- At the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, the iGEM Brno team aims to engineer duckweed, the fastest-growing plant in the world, to enable affordable and local production of protein feed for farmers.
- The UNILA-LatAm team from Brazil’s Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana is focused on infectious disease, with a project designed to block the transmission of dengue virus from mosquitoes.
- Team Warsaw 2025 from the University of Warsaw is focused on supporting HCC cancer patients by developing a targeted therapy that could provide an alternative to today’s aggressive treatment methods.
- Team MSP-Maastricht from Maastricht University in the Netherlands plans to improve efficiency of HVAC cooling systems by coating heat-conducting materials in engineered proteins derived from spider silk.
In responses to our question about why long or complex DNA mattered for their projects, teams let us know about the struggles they had faced trying to get the sequences they need for their work. We could feel the frustration! Many teams reported that their sequences had already been rejected by other synthetic DNA vendors due to repetitive regions, high GC content, or strong secondary structures — even after optimization. According to one team’s entry, “Other DNA synthesis companies have either refused to synthesize this construct due to complexity or have failed in synthesis attempts. Through the Ansa platform, the DNA construct has identified as ‘Complex’ yet provides a classification of ‘Guaranteed’ for synthesis.”
The Ansa team is excited to have delivered these important DNA sequences to help the young scientists who are taking on some of the world’s biggest challenges. Have a great time at the Paris Jamboree!