Tokyo Tech Students Win at iGEM Three Years in a Row

Tokyo Tech becomes first team in history of iGEM to win three years in a row.

The iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition is the premier competition for undergraduate synthetic biology in the world in which student teams are given a kit of standard genetic parts, called BioBricks, which are assembled to design and build a new biological system. Each team gives a presentation of their results for evaluation by judges. This year, iGEM 2014 was held in Boston from October 31 to November 3. A total of 245 teams from around the world participated, including renowned universities such as MIT (USA), Imperial College London (UK), and Tsinghua University (China). The competition is divided into 15 projects, including 5 new projects added this year.

Presentation by Tokyo Tech team

This year's Tokyo Tech team consisted of 11 students from the School of Bioscience and Biotechnology currently enrolled in the Creative Design for Bioscience and Biotechnology II course, 2 students from the School of Science, and 1 student from the School of Engineering. The team built a genetic network modeled after the interaction among customers, companies, and banks and verified the results using simulation. The objectives of this project were to demonstrate the importance of synthetic biology to the general public and to develop teaching materials for enabling science students to gain a better understanding of economic systems. As a result of this project, Tokyo Tech won the prize for the Best Information Processing Project, one of the 15 available project divisions.

This year marked the third year in a row that Tokyo Tech team has won the Information Processing Project, which is a remarkable feat that had never happened in the 10-year history of this competition. These results demonstrated the outstanding abilities of Tokyo Tech students on an international stage. Tokyo Tech also extended its world record of consecutive gold medals to eight years since the inception of the medal system. Of the 245 teams, there are only three teams that hold this record for consecutive gold medals -- Tokyo Tech, the University of Edinburgh (UK), and the University of Freiburg (Germany).

List of Participating Students

• Yuta Kino
  3rd-year, Biological Information, Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Naoto Takahashi
  3rd-year, Biomolecular Engineering, Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Yuya Nakamura
  3rd-year, Biological Information, Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Shoko Suzuki
  3rd-year, Biological Information, Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Keina Matsumura
  3rd-year, Biological Information, Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Ayaka Murase
  3rd-year, Bioengineering, Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Xinan Wang
  3rd-year, Bioengineering, Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Takuya Kato
  3rd-year, Department of Physics, School of Science
• Kai Ye
  3rd-year, Department of Information Science, School of Science
• Paniti Achararit
  3rd-year, Department of Computer Science, School of Engineering
• Riku Shinohara
  2nd-year, Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Kodai Hibi
  2nd-year, Department of Bioscience, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Gyomon Ryu
  2nd-year, Department of Bioscience, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology
• Miyabi Hishinuma
  2nd-year, Department of Bioscience, School of Bioscience and Biotechnology

Tokyo Tech team (with iGEM founder Tom Knight, Ph.D.)

The activities of the Tokyo Tech iGEM team are supported by the Tokyo Institute of Technology Foundation.