Groningen 2011 iGEM team only Dutch team to make it to Boston finals

The Groningen iGEM team is the only Dutch team to qualify for the finals of the annual iGEM competition in Boston via the European preliminary rounds.

In the iGEM, the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, multidisciplinary student teams use the latest technologies from synthetic biology to build a biological machine. They spend their summer vacation inventing, designing and building a bacterium with a useful or interesting application. The iGEM competition was introduced in 2004.

Due to the increasing popularity among student teams, in 2011 the iGEM competition held three preliminary rounds, in Europe (Amsterdam), Asia (Hong Kong) and the USA (Indianapolis). The most successful teams from these preliminary rounds will compete for the World Championship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 5 to 7 November. Some 160 teams in total participated in the preliminary rounds, of which about sixty were selected for the finals.

The Groningen team satisfied the jury’s requirements with their Count Coli, a ‘counting bacterium’, and was awarded a Gold Medal for it . Based on this result, the Groningen team can now present its work at MIT in Boston and compete for the title.

• For more information about the Groningen iGEM team go to http://www.igemgroningen.com/ or send an e-mail to igem igemgroningen.com
• More information about the iGEM competition can be found at http://2011.igem.org/Main_Page
• More information about the European preliminary rounds can be found at  http://2011.igem.org/Jamborees

Note for the press

The supervision team contact person is Prof. O.P. Kuipers, Molecular Genetics