SBU Brings Home its Third Gold Medal at the iGEM Competition

The 2024 Stony Brook University iGEM team. Photo by Ethan Kim.

For the third time ever, Stony Brook University's International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team brought home the gold medal at the iGEM Giant Jamboree.

Held October 23-26 in Paris, France, the iGEM Giant Jamboree is a world expo for synthetic biology. This year's competition featured 438 teams from more than 45 countries, competing for medals and awards by designing, building, and testing projects using cutting edge synthetic biology. Stony Brook was one of 16 U.S. collegiate teams to earn a gold medal.

SBU's project focused on developing a less invasive, more cost effective way to diagnose B-cell lymphoma. The team focused on equipping E.coli with a genetically engineered gene circuit to detect microRNAs as biomarkers for this disease.

"Stony Brook's participation in iGEM continues to have a profound impact on our students," said Peter Gergen, SUNY distinguished service professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences. "This year's team was extremely cohesive and benefited greatly from the advice and assistance provided by former iGEM team members Chris Helenek, AJ Sillato, Abhishek Cherath, Michelle Yang, Bushra Islam and Zach Don as well as input from Dr. Joshua Rest (Ecology and Evolution) and Melanie Cragan (Biochemistry and Cell Biology)."

This year's interdisciplinary iGEM team, comprising three juniors, four sophomores, and eight first-year students when they started last January, included those with majors in biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer science, electrical and computer engineering, information systems, and political science. The team was co-advised by faculty members Peter Gergen and Kathryn Gunn in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, and Gabor Balazsi in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and received support from the staff in Undergraduate Biology.

Learn more about Stony Brook's iGEM team and this year's project at the iGEM website.

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