IGEM wins bronze in Paris

BRYCE BIRCHMEIER
STAFF WRITER

11/11/2024

Alma College’s iGEM team received bronze in Paris’s 2024 Grand Jamboree, the World Expo of Synthetic Biology, from Oct. 23 to Oct. 26. 

IGEM, which stands for International Genetically Engineered Machine, uses synthetic biology to solve real-life problems. Part of iGEM is participating in competitions where teams construct, design, test and present their projects on an issue of their choice.   

Alma’s iGEM team has been working hard to combat white-nose syndrome in bats. This is a disease caused by a fungus “which infects bats during their hibernation period… This causes the bats to become active from hibernation prematurely… Without the necessary means to sustain life available in the winter season, death is often a result,” said the Alma College iGEM wiki page. 

The team has been developing a bacterial spray that can be applied to cave walls to combat the fungus. During the spray production, they focused on making sure it could be produced cheaply and also that it was safe for the environment. 

In this year’s iGEM Grand Jamboree, over 400 teams from over 50 countries came together to share their research and compete to win a title. 

“[We] shared a booth and you had timeslots; the first day was half and half. [And on] the next 2 days, [one of which] the entire day your team was supposed to be there and the next day your entire team was not there. That also gave you time to go to other booths and talk to people,” said Sebastian Nolte (‘25), iGEM student leader.

“[The judges] overview your wiki, overview your presentation video you prepare beforehand and [then] live you have to prepare a 5-minute overview of updates and a general overview of your project and then 25 minutes of questions,” said Nolte.

The Alma College iGEM team also has taken to educating people about this issue. The team traveled to an Ithaca elementary school and held two interactive activities for the kids. 

They created a paper plate demonstration where students drew a bat on a paper plate and placed tape over the eyes, nose and wings of the bat. With a washable marker, they then drew dots to represent the fungus. The students then used a spray bottle full of water and wiped the dots away to show what the Alma team had been working on. 

They also played the contagion game at the elementary school: one student was the infected bat and woke up from hibernation early and began to tag other players. Each tagged player became infected and placed a cotton ball on their nose. At the end of each round, all the kids got “the medicine” and took off their cotton balls.

“We are always looking for new members especially in this coming cycle since we plan to continue with this project and hopefully have more members to promote knowledge of the issue and help us with the solution,” said Nolte. 

So if you are interested in being a part of this work they will be meeting in Dow L2 at 9 pm on Thursday nights for the rest of the semester. And do not worry if you are not a biology major, because all students are welcome to join. 

“The biggest point I want to get across is that IGEM is completely interdisciplinary… any major could find a role in IGEM. There is a role for everyone, which I think is very surprising… With iGEM you need help from every major to make it a good project,” Nolte.

If you would like to see more information about Alma College’s work on this issue search “https://2024.igem.wiki/alma/team” to view their wiki page for all the details about their current work.