Solving local problems in Latin America: iGEM Design League 2021
by Ricardo Chavez, Minerva Castellanos, and Cristiane Toledo
Other Languages:
Español | Resolviendo problemas locales en América Latina: iGEM Design League 2021
Português | Resolvendo problemas locais na América Latina: iGEM Design League 2021
Can you imagine how the future would look if local people solved local problems everywhere in the world? To envision such a future, 25 teams from 8 Latin-American countries, comprising 480 students, took on the challenge of applying biological design to solve local problems in iGEM Design League 2021. These teams of Latinos and Latinas were the first to compete in iGEM Design League, a program to expand synthetic biology in the world.
(Above) iGEM Design League students gathered for the final Award Ceremony at the regional meetup in Cancun, Mexico in November. (Cover) Design League teams watching the Award Ceremony at the regional meetup in São Carlos, Brasil.
Their projects covered a range of local problems in Latin America, from Energy, Environment & Biodiversity to Health, Diagnostics & Therapeutics and more. An international panel of judges evaluated the performance of each team, and the results were impressive – with 10 teams earning gold medals, 10 earning silver, and 5 earning bronze. Excellence in the accomplishments of the teams was also recognized with track awards and special prizes to honor the most unique contributions to iGEM Design League.
The top 6 finalists, nominees and winner of the iGEM Design League Grand Prize were:
🏆 Grand Prize Winner
Mikuytec (Peru) for developing antifungal and antioxidant proteins to fight food waste in fruits and vegetables.
🥇 1st Runner-Up
UAM (Mexico) for designing a chimera protein from two spider venom peptides that specifically targets pests in nopal cactus for their community.
🥈 2nd Runner-Up
Biotec-CCM (Mexico) for developing a point-of-care aptamer-based biosensor to detect inflammation in the elderly population.
🏅 Finalists
Biotech-EC (Ecuador), UnB/Embrapa (Brazil), Ollin Synbio IPN (Mexico)
Beyond simply imagining a better future in Latin America through synthetic biology design, the top 3 finalist teams will continue to change the world with their projects through the generous support of iGEM Design League sponsors. As announced by Tom Knight (iGEM Founder, and Senior Vice President of Gingko Bioworks), members of the Mikuytec (Peru), UAM (Mexico), and Biotec-CCM (Mexico) iGEM Design League teams will be going to Boston to meet the incredible cutting edge platform of Ginkgo Bioworks and to receive mentorship from Ginkgo's scientists. These teams will also receive DNA synthesis support from IDT to build and test their designs.
“iGEM Design League was created with the passion of the Latin American iGEMers and the understanding of regional challenges to build a program that empowers you to define your own synthetic biology journey. This year you have shown us that it is possible, and you are bringing novel perspectives in showing that synthetic biology can be developed in new ways in countries and regions that have never participated in iGEM before. We cannot wait to see what else you will accomplish after your iGEM Design League experience.”
– Meagan Lizarazo, Executive Vice President, iGEM Foundation
All of us at iGEM, and the synthetic biology community as a whole, are thrilled with the accomplishments of the iGEM Design League 2021 teams. This is only the first year of iGEM Leagues and we couldn’t be more excited about it has turned out. Next year we will take what we’ve learned from this first year to grow the iGEM Leagues program in other regions of the world.
How would your future look if local people solved local problems with biology? We invite you to join us for iGEM Design League 2022 in Latin America and for a new iGEM Indian League 2022 reimagining the landscape of synthetic biology in India. Welcome to the iGEM community!
