Another world record for Tokyo Tech with 10th straight iGEM gold medal

Published: December 16, 2016

Tokyo Tech achieved yet another gold medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) in 2016, extending the world record to a tenth straight gold. Of the 305 iGEM teams participating in 2016, only Tokyo Tech and the University of Freiburg from Germany have been awarded the shiniest medal ten consecutive times.

Tokyo Tech team

iGEM is the world's premier competition for undergraduate synthetic biology in which student teams are given a kit of standard genetic parts called BioBricks, which are used to design and build a new biological system. To help students focus their projects on certain subject areas, the competition is divided into tracks. This year, the iGEM included ten standard tracks and four special new tracks. Results are shared in presentation form and evaluated by judges.

iGEM 2016 was held in Boston from October 27 to 31, with 305 teams from around the world participating. These included students from renowned universities such as MIT, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, and Tsinghua University.

This year's Tokyo Tech team was made up of 17 students from the School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, four students from the School of Engineering, and one from the School of Science. The team's goal was to spread awareness of the importance of synthetic biology by retelling the famous fairytale of Snow White using E. coli. Team Tokyo Tech also made videos on genetic modification and showed them at nearby high schools during the contest.

2016 Tokyo Tech team members

School of Bioscience and Biotechnology

Kazuki Fujisawa	3rd year, Biomolecular Engineering
Kentaro Akiyama	3rd year, Biomolecular Engineering
Hiro Kondo	3rd year, Bioengineering
Mizuki Tabata	3rd year, Biomolecular Engineering
Yuya Netsu	3rd year, Bioengineering
Narumi Ogawa	2nd year, Biotechnology
Mako Kono	2nd year, Biotechnology
Nozoki Takeue	2nd year, Biotechnology
Ayako Tamaki	2nd year, Biotechnology
Kengo Nakahara	2nd year, Biotechnology
Miki Nishimori	2nd year, Biotechnology
Nae Fu	2nd year, Biotechnology
Jiawan Sun	2nd year, Bioscience
Maoko Takenoshita	2nd year, Bioscience
Hazuki Hasegawa	2nd year, Bioscience
Yoshio Takata	1st year, 7th Academic Group
Hajime Fujita	1st year, 7th Academic Group

School of Engineering

Ryuta Sasaki	3rd year, Computer Science
Xin Guo	2nd year, International Development Engineering
Alex Miguel Llacsahuanga Allcca	2nd year, Mechanical Engineering and Science
Koji Nishikawa	2nd year, Organic and Polymeric Materials

School of Science

Shunya Akiyama

3rd year, Physics

This event is supported by Tokyo Tech Fund

Tokyo Institute of Technology Fund

Contact

Department of Life Science and Technology, School of Life Science and Technology
Associate Professor Yoh-ichi Tagawa

Email ytagawa@bio.titech.ac.jp
Tel +81-45-924-5791

*: This article has been updated to correct an error in the team name on December 28.
*: This article has been updated to correct a typographical error on January 4.