iGEM-2020
Date /
Yesterday, November 22, the international competition of projects in engineering biology iGEM-2020 ended. A team of students and postgraduates of the Moscow State University iGEM Moscow won a gold medal with a project to create a portable system for detecting hepatitis C viruses (https://2020.igem.org/Team:Moscow).
The first team this year consisted of undergraduate and graduate students of the departments of bioengineering, biochemistry, molecular biology, embryology, Biophysics, General ecology and Hydrobiology, faculty of biology and faculty of bioengineering and bioinformatics. The team was also joined by students of the First Sechenov Moscow State Medical University and Tianjin University in China. The team leader was Daria Smolyarova, a 2nd-year master's student of the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University.
The team's scientific director is Alexey Shaitan, a leading researcher at the Department of Bioengineering, and Dmitry Karpov, a senior researcher at Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, is a co-director. Consultants of the team was made by the Dean of the biology Department, academician Mikhail Kirpichnikov, chief epidemiologist, Ministry of health of the Russian Federation, Director of the Erisman Institute of public health, Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine of the First Moscow State Medical University, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Briko, Head of the project office "Rare (Orphan) Diseases" of the Semashko National Research Institute of Public Health Elena Krasilnikova, Manager for Attracting Talents of the BIOCAD company Alexander Efremov.
BIOCAD, HyTest, Geropharm, Helicon, Eurogen, Lumiprobe, Skijin and Albiogen provided active assistance in the implementation of the project.
The iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition literally translates from English as "international genetically engineered machines", founded in 2003 at the Massachusetts Technical University (Boston, USA), annually brings together schoolchildren, students and postgraduates from all over the world to create projects to solve the most pressing problems of humanity using genetic engineering methods. A special feature of the competition is the use of a unique library of genetic constructs (BioBricks) and the emphasis on the practical applicability of each project. The year 2020 was special: due to the epidemiological situation, the competition was held online, despite this, more than 250 teams from all over the world took part in it. The medal won by the team was the first medal for Moscow and the second medal for Russia in the entire history of the competition.
Congratulations to the guys!
