Students from the Utah Valley University (UVU) College of Science took home the silver medal for the second year in a row during the Internationally Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Grand Jamboree competition held in Paris, France, from Oct. 23-36. The 15 undergraduate students participated alongside 400 other teams and 4,500 other students from around the world during this worldwide competition.

Their project, Bloom Busters, aimed to engineer a harmless species of algae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, to remove excess nutrients (primarily phosphorous and nitrogen) from wastewater as a way of combating the toxic algal blooms that occur in Utah Lake and other waterways each summer. The team, composed of 15 junior and senior biotechnology and bioinformatics students, spent nine months on Bloom Busters.

"Attending the iGEM Jamboree in Paris was an incredible experience,” said team member and UVU student Gerardo Acosta. “Seeing our project showcased alongside other teams from around the world has been inspiring, and the energy and creativity everyone brings to solving real-world issues is amazing. Holding the competition in France also provided a wonderful backdrop for the synthetic biology competition, and exploring Paris made the whole experience unforgettable."

The Bloom Busters team successfully increased phosphorus uptake and is conducting additional experiments to find the best way to increase nitrogen uptake. In addition to conducting experiments, the team developed its own website, recorded promotional and presentation videos, and interacted with the community at over three dozen outreach events.

Students on the team attribute their success at the competition to their time at UVU.

“I believe that opportunities like this, at UVU, are imperative to a student's education in its ability to showcase what student-driven work can be,” said team member Elise Bennett. “This is an experience that I will never forget. Because of my time with the iGEM team, I plan on pursuing graduate programs that investigate the frontiers of synthetic biology.”

“Participating in iGEM this year was a life-changing experience,” added team member Jonathan Kinross. “The ability to plan and execute a long-term research project not only gave me hands-on experience working with a team of peer scientists but also confidence that I am capable as a scientist and that I belong in this community. Even more, the opportunity to engage with a community of scientists around the world and to be able to be seen on the same level as them and learn from them has been incredibly rewarding. When I realized the potential of and participated in synthetic biology, the entire world opened up for me, and it was my mentors and this entire iGEM experience that made that possible.”

Learn more about iGEM