Unit 1: International Genetic Engineering Competition

Introduction to iGEM

The iGEM Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of synthetic biology, education and competition, and the development of an open community and collaboration. This is done by fostering an open, cooperative community and friendly competition, the iGEM Competition.

Started in 2004 with only 31 participant from 5 teams, it has grown into one of the largest science competition with 5400 participant from 310 teams. As the synthetic biology is still a fairly new study, a lot of the ground work is still under research and some of them are also studied in iGEM.

The iGEM Cycle

This roadmap shows the key stages of doing iGEM. For the first phase of the project, most of the focus will be on brainstorming ideas and doing literature review. At this phase, all team members are involved in trying to find a suitable topic to work on. Backing literature review should be commenced to collect the necessary background information.

You should also think about how this problem can be solved using synthetic biology method and why it is better than other methods out there. Keep in mind that your project has to be tested by experiments so it would be much better to think about how to test your design at the first place.

Parts and biological machines

Behind the concept of biological machine, the model of engineering is embedded in the advancements in biotechnology. As one of the key idea of synthetic biology is to create biological machines( which means to utilize cells to tasks according to the command of DNA), you may consider iGEM parts as building block of a machine. Different parts work together like a set of programming language, completing different functions. iGEM foundation runs other programs and research projects, such the parts registry and the interlab studies, which facilitate the development of synthetic biology. For the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, it has documented over 20000 standardized biological parts and is completely free and open to everyone. The sequence and assembly compatibility and other details be obtained for all standard parts. All parts in iGEM can be categorized as basic parts and composite parts. Composite parts are made up of several basic parts.

Bioethics

Bioethics is a subfield of ethics. It has been a popular field of study due to the advancement in synthetic biology. It is the study of moral conflicts or coexistence between the values and the latest development in the biology field or the usage of biology techniques. Bioethics may also involve issues of public policy, which may affect wide audience, thus must be carefully handled.

(For a general understanding, https://youtu.be/_UQPKGEFpUA)

As a researcher / biology student / iGEM team member, we must consider bioethics when we conduct any project or experiment, making sure that what we do meets our core values.

Belmont report

Belmont report is a widely recognized document which summarizes the principles of ethical issues related to biology. It points out that all kinds of research should meet the following principles:

Respect for persons: Researchers should treat everyone as mankind, with humanity. This includes the handling of research data collected from patients etc.
Beneficence: Researchers should try their best to minimize the harm or damage to the environment, research subjects, including both humans and animals, in the process of the whole research.
Justice: Researchers should ensure that the research process is fair between the research participants, the process of the research should be well-regulated.

While every country has its own laws or regulations on bioethics with different criterion, the above principles are widely recognized to be strictly followed.

Bioethics controversies

Bioethics is involved in different aspects, from education, to medical. Abortion and cloning are two popular topic that involves bioethics, their background and controversies will be discussed.

Abortion is the removal of the embryo or foetus from the uterus before it can survive alone outside the uterus. Parents may choose to abort due to many reasons, including unexpected pregnancy, economic factors, incest, reping. It is estimated that there are about 44 million cases of abortion every year, which is about 1 case per second. It is a very popular and safe procedure, however, there are many debate over the moral, ethical and legal issues of abortion.

Those who support abortion thinks that woman has the right to make decisions about her own body, a.k.a. physical autonomy, or it may help maintain well public health by reducing the amount of unwanted child or child with sickness. In contrast, those who oppose abortion say that humans do not have the right to end the life of others. They think that abortion is an act of murder.

Cloning is another bioethics topic, it is the process of “copying” a genetically identical organism to produce copies of that organism. An example of the use of cloning is the cloning of stem cells. We can create stem cells to help us maintain and repair our body. For example, stem cells could be used to grow a complete organ for organ transplantation.

As it can be used for many purposes in different aspects, some emphasize the benefit of studying cell differentiation at the same time that cloning is studied and developed. Also, some think that we may create humans with identical genetic makeup to act as organ donors for each other. While others are worried of the possibility of compromising individualities and the loss of genetic variation etc.

Though both abortion and cloning has a long history, the debate still goes on today, making them the biggest topics of bioethics.

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