{"164311":{"#nid":"164311","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech\u0027s 2012 iGEM Team Wins a Silver Medal","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEarlier this month a team of undergraduates brought home a silver medal in the 2012 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. iGEM is considered the premiere undergraduate synthetic biology competition where teams design, construct and analyze novel biological systems to perform new functions in living cells.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe competition, which featured 195 teams from around the globe, took place October 12-14 in Pittsburgh as part of iGEMs Americas East Regional Jamboree. Tech\u2019s team consisted of five undergraduates: biology majors Natalie Chilcutt, Joseph Elsherbini and Jennifer Goff as well as Mitesh Agrawal and Jennifer Boothby from biomedical engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe students began work on their project this past summer, engineering a synthetic biosensor system in bacteria, inspired by the cell-cell communication process called \u201cquorum sensing\u201d studied in the Hammer lab. The students used a technique called bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) to document a response to an extracellular chemical signal in the model bacterium E. coli. The bacteria were engineered to make two halves of a naturally green fluorescent protein (GFP) that are not fluorescent independently and only interact to form a complete fluorescent protein in the presence of a defined chemical signal. This novel system has the potential to be tailored to respond to different extracellular molecules, such as toxins, metabolites and pollutants,\u0026nbsp; and is designed to provide a more rapid response than traditional biosensor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis year\u2019s iGEM project (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/2012.igem.org\/Team:Georgia_Tech\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/2012.igem.org\/Team:Georgia_Tech\u003C\/a\u003E) arose from a National Science Foundation-sponsored (NSF) collaborative synthetic biology project currently underway involving the Hammer lab and multiple engineering collaborators (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/research\/labs\/bwn\/monaco\/index.html\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/research\/labs\/bwn\/monaco\/index.html\u003C\/a\u003E). The team was supported by funding from the School of Biology, NSF as well as Georgia Tech\u2019s President\u2019s Undergraduate Research Awards and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team is advised by Brian Hammer, assistant professor in the School of Biology, and Mark Styczynski, assistant professor in the School of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering. The team is mentored by postdoctoral fellow Patrick Bardill (biology) with assistance from Ph.D. students Samit Watve (biology) and Youssef Chahibi (electrical \u0026amp; computer engineering). The iGEM advisory board includes additional faculty, Joshua Weitz, Eric Gaucher and Harold Kim, who have served as past advisors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEarlier this month a team of undergraduates brought home a silver medal in the 2012 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. iGEM is considered the premiere undergraduate synthetic biology competition where teams design, construct and analyze novel biological systems to perform new functions in living cells.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Earlier this month a team of undergraduates brought home a silver medal in the 2012 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition."}],"uid":"27245","created_gmt":"2012-10-22 15:43:45","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:13:02","author":"Troy Hilley","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-10-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2012-10-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"164291":{"id":"164291","type":"image","title":"IGEM2012","body":null,"created":"1449178920","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:42:00","changed":"1475894799","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:39","alt":"IGEM2012","file":{"fid":"195495","name":"igem_team_copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/igem_team_copy_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/igem_team_copy_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":304294,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/igem_team_copy_0.jpg?itok=2L6CP3ep"}},"164301":{"id":"164301","type":"image","title":"igem 2012 Fragments of GFP","body":null,"created":"1449178920","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:42:00","changed":"1475894799","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:39","alt":"igem 2012 Fragments of GFP","file":{"fid":"195496","name":"gfp_fragment_reassembly_copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gfp_fragment_reassembly_copy_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gfp_fragment_reassembly_copy_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":166723,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/gfp_fragment_reassembly_copy_0.jpg?itok=ayhqJoZI"}}},"media_ids":["164291","164301"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/2012.igem.org\/Team:Georgia_Tech","title":"Georgia Tech iGEM TEAM"}],"groups":[{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"47351","name":"igem 2012"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}