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The Cornell iGEM Project Team is an award-winning synthetic biology research team of 50 undergraduate students. The team comprises five subteams: Wet Lab, Product Development, Policy and Practices, Business, and Wiki/Design. The team works throughout the school year and summer to solve local and global problems related to medical applications, environmental concerns, and human and animal health. We compete against 300+ multidisciplinary teams from all around the world at the iGEM Grand Jamboree, hosted annually by the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation.

What is Synthetic Biology?

Synthetic biology is the field in which scientists redesign and repurpose machinery naturally found in the biological world to achieve a man-driven goal. Some famous examples of synthetic biology that have changed the world as we know it:

iGEM Grand Jamboree

Grand Jamboree

The Grand Jamboree is the annual competition hosted by the iGEM foundation during which hundreds of teams from around the globe gather to present their projects, network with other teams and companies, and learn more about the field of synthetic biology. It is made up of multiple different events spanning the course of four days. Everything is bookended by the opening and closing ceremonies. In between these ceremonies, some activities you might find are project presentation sessions, poster sessions and workshops, along with other special events such as a career fair or a start-up showcase. In addition to participating in these activities and speaking with other teams, you also get the chance to meet representatives from sponsor companies and talk with them as well.



The Grand Jamboree means a lot to iGEM, but not just for the reason that it is our chance to show off our impressive work that we do annually. The Grand Jamboree is also a tremendous opportunity for team bonding and camaraderie. Each year after the Grand Jamboree ends and iGEM members head back from Paris to Ithaca, everyone leaves feeling as if they have gotten closer to the people around them.

Grand Jamboree


Meet Our Subteams

The Wet Lab subteam is primarily responsible for the design, construction, and validation of the varying biological and genetic components of our project. Our work centers around using synthetic biology techniques, such as PCR, Western blot, Gibson assembly, and bacterial transformation, to assemble our genetic circuits. Beyond construct design and benchwork, the team plays a pivotal role in employing computational methods to model biological pathways to accurately predict system behavior, providing further validation and insight for experimental design. Our team also works closely with our other subteams to ensure biological feasibility that aligns with real-world applicability, ethical consideration, and potential for scalability to maximize the impact of our engineered solutions.

This year's project focuses on developing a microbial co-culture system for Martian regolith remediation, targeting the high perchlorate toxicity and salt concentration. Our system consists of three primary stages: 1.) Engineering and characterization of E. coli to express key perchlorate reduction proteins (pcrA and pcrB) 2.) Cultivation and optimization of Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002, which naturally uptakes chloride byproducts from the perchlorate reduction process and recycles organic carbon through sucrose secretion 3.) Development of the co-culture growth chamber in collaboration with the Product Development subteam to support the growth of both organisms under controlled environmental conditions. This closed system is engineered to ensure optimal parameters for microbial activity are maintained for efficient perchlorate and salt remediation in simulated Martian soil.

The product development subteam is an engineering-focused, user-centered, end-to-end development team. Our end goal is to bring iGEM's biological innovations to the real world. We apply product design thinking and various engineering disciplines to explore user needs, generate a problem statement, design and prototype a solution to the problem, and create product specifications to prepare for manufacturing.

This year, product development plans to design and implement a fixed bed biofilm bioreactor to provide a platform for bioremediation of perchlorate ions in Mars soil, which includes a cartridge biofilm carrier that is easily replaceable for two functioning microbes. In previous years, the product development subteam has built a continuously-stirred tank bioreactor (CSTR) to biomanufacture ursolic acid (2023), a boat with an automatic sampling system (2019), a bioreactor (2019 + 2022), planter cups that monitor and adjust oxidative conditions for the plant (2018), software that displays information about a hydroponics system in real-time to a dashboard and alerts farmers (2018), a customizable milking shell that prevents bovine mastitis (2017), an app with a built-in cell counter that also tracks trends in cow health (2017), and many more.

Policy and Practices focuses on analyzing the ethics and policy of our project while also interviewing stakeholders to check the methodology of all aspects of the project. Stakeholders include researchers, industry professionals, medical experts, and the general public, and their input is used to contextualize the impact of our projects. The subteam also coordinates outreach and educational events such as youth mentorship programs, forums, and expos to inform and educate the public about the field of synthetic biology.

This year's project aims to create a co-culture of bacteria to reduce perchlorates in martian soil to design a space agriculture system. Through interviews with field experts and interactions with the public, we are reminded that the people we meet always have stories to tell. We aim to share our story with them, too.

The business subteam focuses on delivering a business plan throughout the season in order to commercialize the work our team has developed. We focus on developing market analysis, competitor analysis, industrial scale-up and more. We have also filed a patent to protect iGEM's IP. We also deal with iGEM's finances, budgeting and recruiting. We maintain an active and communicative relationship with our school and sponsors year round. The business subteam also works with the Policy and Practices subteam to spread awareness about synthetic biology at Cornell both on- and off-campus through social media and hosting special events such as fundraisers and school seminars. In recent years, the Business Subteam has been trying to facilitate a team-wide transition from a competition-based organization to a truly independent synbio developer and thinktank.

The Wiki subteam is mainly in charge of designing and implementing the competition website each year that showcases our project. During the spring semesters, we hold design and web development training that spans visual design, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. During this training, there are weekly/bi-weekly lessons and projects to go along with them. Over the summer, we create the design for our competition website over several iterations and implement it in the fall!

We also collaborate with other subteams on software-related tasks. Last year, we worked with PnP to create a children's book and an educational Fruit Ninja-style game. This year, we are collaborating with PD to create an Arduino user interface for our bioreactor. Wiki is like the painter of the team - we bring everything together for presentation and documentation, including video editing, web design, photography and more!