cGEM Part I: The Teams
Nicole Leblanc - October 29, 2020
While many events and conferences were cancelled this year due to the pandemic, the first-ever Canadian iGEM (cGEM) conference was held on October 3rd and 4th. With over 240 participants registered, 10 iGEM teams presenting, 4 workshops, multiple panels, and keynote speakers, this event fostered important synthetic biology discussions. This inaugural trainee-led conference was organized by iGEM members across the country, led by iGEM alumni and synthetic biology enthusiasts, Jehoshua Sharma, Bi-ru Amy Yeung, and Luana Langlois who saw a need for a trainee-focused synthetic biology conference.
The year of 2020 will certainly be remembered for generations to come as the time when ‘unprecedented circumstances’ interfered with plans for the future on a global scale. This was no different for Canadian iGEM teams as many were forced to make the difficult decision to not participate in the (rather expensive) international competition this year.
Having recognized the educational value of the experiential learning opportunity facilitated by the iGEM competition, the cGEM steering committee sought to develop an all-Canadian version of the competition at no cost, which aims to contribute to the creation of training opportunities for young trainees in the country and better reflects the organization’s values: academic ingenuity, entrepreneurship, fostering public trust, and promoting interdisciplinary action. To this end, the organizers developed their own judging criteria, which placed a stronger emphasis on entrepreneurship. Also, many teams were unable to access labs as they normally would and so the cGEM competition criteria was focused on project design, collaboration, and peer review.
The cGEM criteria was used to judge the teams not participating in the iGEM competition, while the teams attending the online iGEM jamboree were judged by the iGEM Medal criteria so as to minimize the duplication of efforts for the latter teams. From the teams that are not participating in the iGEM competition this year, three teams were awarded a gold medal, the University of Guelph, the University of Ottawa, and the University of British Columbia, one team was awarded a silver medal, McMaster University, and one team awarded a bronze medal, the University of Toronto.
Of the teams that are participating in the iGEM competition this year, there were 2 teams awarded a gold medal, the University of Waterloo and Queen’s University, one team awarded a silver medal, Lethbridge Collegiate, and two teams awarded a bronze medal, University of Calgary and Lethbridge high school. In addition to medals 4 special awards were given out including best academic innovation to McMaster University, best entrepreneurship exploration and best scientific communication to University of British Columbia, and best collaboration to the University of Ottawa
With synthetic biology-based projects ranging from engineering various crops to developing software to help predict vaccine targets, the iGEM teams demonstrated a breadth of knowledge that can be readily applied to address imminent global and local issues, leaving all of the attendees nothing but impressed. Have a look below to see what each team worked on! More information including project presentations can be found at the cgem2020.ca website.
The Teams
McMaster: Built a mathematical model of a bacterial population carrying antibiotic resistance genes subjected to sustained antibiotic pressure due to the antisense oligonucleotide (ASO)-mediated silencing of antibiotic resistance genes! They also worked on validating the time to failure, frequency of specific and non-specific mutations that lead to resistance and explored clinical trials to better understand ASO cytotoxicity and patient adherence.
Guelph: CRISPR for Climate Resistance. They are working on controlling the expression of plant genes such as cold tolerance genes or drought resistance genes to enable the plant to survive in harsh conditions. Also, in an attempt to democratize science, they have designed an affordable shaking incubator and with further testing, intend to make this model available to other iGEM teams so they can build their own too.
Ottawa: Developing a solution to remediate plastic pollution in freshwater environments. By developing a bioreactor and utilizing a plastic degrading enzyme, PETase, water from wastewater treatment plants can be more thoroughly processed and plastic extraction can be improved. The broken down plastic could be recycled and used to make biogas or more plastic products.
Toronto: Generating more efficient plastic-degrading enzymes by combining rational design and machine learning. The team has proposed a bioreactor for textile recycling in Toronto, diverting them from landfills, by generating more stable and efficient variants of current plastic degrading enzymes, such as PETase, MHETase, and LLC, and integrating these into E. coli.
UBC: Designed VPRE (Viral Predictor for mRNA Evolution), a software tool that simulates evolution to predict genetic mutations in viruses. Applying this software to emerging viruses, the evolution of protein sequences can be predicted and can help inform pre-emptive vaccine development that targets conserved viral proteins.
Lethbridge Collegiate: Engineering potatoes to express antimicrobial peptides as a solution to problems concerning agriculture. Having potatoes express antimicrobial peptides effective against Fusarium fungi, would eliminate the issue of infections during potato storage. Another possibility is to express antimicrobial peptides with known health benefits to help boost consumers' immune systems, increasing public resilience in the event of a pandemic.
Calgary: Developed, OVIITA, a food-safe beta-carotene rich strain of yeast that is modified to secrete enzymes to increase beta-carotene production and to help combat poor vitamin absorption for the prevention of Vitamin A deficiency. This would empower communities to cultivate their own renewable source of vitamin A locally. The team has also developed the Randle cell, a portable Vitamin A deficiency diagnostic device.
Lethbridge High School: Designed tPectinACE, Targeting Pectin to Accelerate Compost Enzymatically, a synthetic system to accelerate compost degradation. The team aims to create a system that can be utilized in households and in large-scale composting facilities to help eliminate the methane gas produced from composting which contributes to climate change.
Queens: Developed a biosensor for the quantification of chronic kidney disease (CKD) biomarkers such as parathyroid hormone and fibroblast growth factor 23. The current monitoring method in Canada is through blood samples every 6 weeks and this time frame makes it difficult to provide patient-specific treatments. The biosensor would allow for frequent monitoring and early CKD detection, leading to better patient outcomes.
Waterloo: Designed REMINE, a column bioreactor with metal-binding proteins to remove toxic heavy metals from electronic manufacturing wastewater. This also allows for heavy metal recycling as they are very valuable. REMINE system can be customized to target specific metals, making it adaptable to the environment it is used in.
Best of luck to Queen’s, Waterloo, Lethbridge Collegiate and high school, and Calgary upcoming iGEM competition, we know you will make us all proud! And make sure to keep an eye out for Part II of our cGEM summary coming soon.