*O***n Sunday afternoon the students ended among the best 18 (of 47) in the European preliminary round in Amsterdam.** Wageningen was not one of the top three (Groningen was the winner). But the Wageningen team did win the prize for the best presentation. The global final round is at MIT in Boston in early November.
Clear
‘It is really great to get this recognition after a summer of slogging away,’ says Jeroen Bosman, team member and Biotechnology student. ‘I am really over the moon. Actually, we were becoming more and more pessimistic towards the end. The jury didn’t give us that much attention, but it turns out that was because our presentation was so clear.’
Medicines
The iGEM competition is all about synthetic biology. Students create synthetic biological links called BioBricks. For example, in Amsterdam the Wageningen team presented a plan for modifying the protein casing of a virus. You can use this to target the delivery of medicine to a body. The team now has another three weeks to work on their project.
Worse for wear
They had a modest celebration of their achievement yesterday evening with a meal and a few beers. Bosman: ‘I’ll be back in lectures tomorrow morning, though perhaps a little the worse for wear and with my thoughts elsewhere.’