Congratulations to the student-run International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team for winning a bronze medal at the 2015 Giant Jamboree which took place September 24-28 in Boston, MA. Shown in this picture from left to right are Sam Keating, Dr. Cynthia Wagner, May Li, and Pranesh Navarathna. Both Sam and Pranesh are students in the department of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering.

The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is a research opportunity for undergraduates in the field of synthetic biology.  Undergraduates participating in this competition design a synthetic biology project during the academic year, implement the project during the summer months, and presenting the results in the fall at MIT’s Giant Jamboree.  The Jamboree is an annual event where iGEM teams from high schools and universities from all over the world come to present their synthetic biology projects.  On September 24, members of UMBC’s International Genetically Modified Machine team traveled to Boston to present their research at MIT’s Giant Jamboree. UMBC’s iGEM team presented a copper bioremediation project.  Copper is a major contaminant in many bodies of water including the Chesapeake Bay.  The UMBC iGEM team had two goals: to engineer E. coli that could withstand high copper concentrations, and to increase E. coli’s ability to uptake copper from the environment. In order to accomplish this, the UMBC iGEM team engineered E. coli to overexpress a protein called metallothionein which is capable of binding eleven copper atoms and also capable of neutralizing toxic free radicals that are generated by an overabundance of copper.   Preliminary data showed promise with both increased survivability and increased uptake in E. coli.  Eventually, this research could lead to a waste management technique that uses engineered E. coli to remove copper contaminants from the environment. The team was awarded a bronze medal for demonstrating a real world need for copper remediation and sufficient methods and documentation of the work done this summer.