The 2021 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition has announced its results. The UGM team has brought the Silver medal home upon competing with hundreds of teams from more than 40 countries.
The iGEM Competition is an international synthetic biology competition organized by the Boston-based iGEM Foundation. In addition to undergraduate students, the competition is open to high school and postgraduate students, companies, and community labs. Every year, nearly 6,000 people from around the world gather to compete and present their work. This year the event’s peak Giant Jamboree took place in Paris online on 4-14 November.
The 12 students registered in this team are Yustika Sari (Biology), Farhan Wali (Biology), Setianing Wikanthi (Agriculture), Ridwan Fathoni (Agriculture), Wilda Asyrina Maris (Agriculture), Azzahra Asysyifa (Medicine), I Gusti Agung Arvin Nanda Pratama (Engineering), Ahmad Zidan (Engineering), Yafi Surya Permana (Pharmacy), Dennaya Kumara (Pharmacy), Shina Aulia Hassanah (Economics and Business), and Waffiq Maaroja (Mathematics and Natural Sciences). Together they generated research entitled Auviola: a cyanide-regulating system for gold bioleaching and waste treatment towards sustainable non-mercury gold processing.
Team leader Yustika Sari said the team put a lot of effort and hard work throughout the competition. The countless support from supervisors, partners, and the University has also played a significant part in the team’s success. She hopes the achievement can inspire and motivate the next UGM team in the iGEM Competition. The team’s primary principal investigator, Dr. Yekti Asih Purwestri, added that the win was the result of a collaboration between parties from various disciplines. This teamwork, she continued, must be strengthened and developed further.
“Hopefully, this success will encourage us to enhance multidisciplinary collaboration and utilize the diversity of knowledge at UGM to develop synthetic biology to answer the nation’s problems,” she said.
Author: Ika