Meet the team
Hi everyone!
Thank you all for the support we've received thus far. We are the 2019 Virginia iGEM team and we'd like to share how we got here.
iGEM is a synthetic biology competition where 350 student groups from universities around the world build biological devices that tackle global problems. All undergraduate iGEM teams are student-organized, with all research, experimentation, and fundraising carried out by students.
Our journey began in the classroom where we learned the basics of synthetic biology. In this class, we were tasked with defining a global problem that could be solved with synthetic biology. Our head researcher, Simonne, saw an opportunity to apply her love for the environment to her project.
One weekend at the farmer's market, Simonne walked by the recycling bins and saw a sign that said "NO STYROFOAM." She was puzzled how such a common plastic could not be easily recycled. After doing more research, Simonne realized she could use synthetic biology to mediate this issue!
Initially, the project comprised solely of the degradation of styrofoam; however, Simonne realized this lacked novelty. After another round of research, Simonne discovered the byproduct of her experiment to be acetyl-CoA. With her new knowledge of plastics, she foresaw this byproduct becoming the building block of something far more useful. With the help of our other researchers, Aarati, Kobe, and Jermaine, the final construct was created: a bacteria that converts Styrofoam into P3HB, a biodegradable plastic.
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