Bio-tweeting Witsies lauded at synthetic biology World Championships
- By Deborah Minors
A team of Witsies won second place out of 65 in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) European region “jamboree” held in Amsterdam in October. The team won a place in the World Championships that followed in Massachusetts in November and finished in the top 16 out of 180 teams from 22 countries.
Judges lauded the Wits team’s “bio-tweet” technology as “an exemplary piece of work” worthy of inclusion in what the judges dubbed the “Sweet Sixteen” top teams.
iGEM is a synthetic biology competition which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hosts annually for universities worldwide.
Synthetic biology is the creation of biological “machines” that are designed according to engineering principles but made from biological components such as DNA and proteins.
The iGEM competition requires teams to build and test these machines. Rivalry is fierce as students from some of the world’s most eminent universities - Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, Stanford, MIT - vie to win the prestigious prize.
Fifty teams from 17 countries competed in the European regional jamboree. The Wits team, comprising Witsies and partners from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), was the only African team. The regional finals saw Team CSIR-Wits’ bio-tweet win a gold medal and prizes for best experimental measurement approach and best poster.
Bio-tweet is a bacterial communication network which imitates social networks to enable the rapid integration and exchange of information. The network can be re-programmed to seek out specific substances and communicate - bio-tweet - this information to other bacteria. The technology could potentially benefit medicine, environmental remediation and industry.
The multidisciplinary team included Ezio Fok (BSc Microbiology, Biotechnology & Human Physiology 2011), Gloria Hlongwane (BSc Microbiology, Biotechnology & Chemistry 2011), Natasia Kruger (BSc Microbiology & Biotechnology 2011), Bradley Marques (BEngSci BME 2010) and Sasha Reznichenko.