There was great celebration in Boston: At the finals of the student bioengineering competition iGEM, Team Munich took home the overall victory in the "Overgraduate" category. The Munich team has developed a novel process for creating intact tissue using a 3D printer.
Double is better: At the international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition In Boston, the double team of LMU and TUM students was able to convince the expert jury in the over-23 category with their 3D cell printer and matching bio-ink.
12 German teams among the finalists
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) The competition, initiated by the iGEM Foundation, has been organized since 2003 and aims to encourage students in the field of synthetic biology to implement innovative ideas and compete against each other with these biotechnological projects.
Among the 300 finalist teams this year were twelve German teams, including a joint Team from TUM and LMU from Munich.
Creating intact tissue using a 3D printer
The iGEM project of the year 2016, led by Professor Arne Skerra from Chair of Biological Chemistry of the TUM and supported by Research Training Group GRK 2062 at LMU, has dedicated himself to the growing problem of a lack of donor organs in transplantation medicine.
“The participating students from TUM and LMU have developed a novel method that will ultimately make it possible to produce intact tissues and possibly even entire organs using a 3D printer,”
says Professor Skerra about his current project group.
“This has only become possible through the combination of the disciplines of synthetic biology, molecular biotechnology, protein design, and engineering.”
In addition to a gold medal, the TUM-LMU team also secured additional titles for “Best Hardware,” “Best Software,” and “Best Manufacturing Project.”
