Building new life forms at the iGEM Jamboree

*I hope these bio-geek Brits are this perky about it when the Martian terraforming bacteria escape and red goo eats the Earth.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-11/09/building-new-life-forms-at-the-igem-jamboree.aspx

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“I walked into the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) Jamboree, equipped with an aluminium briefcase full of multi-coloured poo. I was with fellow designer James King and the Cambridge University iGEM team: seven ...

rainbow-haired undergraduates who spent their summer engineering a new kind of E.coli that secretes a palette of seven colours, christened E. chromi after a tense online vote.

“Three days and 112 presentations of synthetic biological machines later, we found ourselves on stage, electrified, in front of 1,500 people in MIT’s largest auditorium as we were presented with the grand prize, a giant milled-aluminium Lego block – the BioBrick – by the founders of synthetic biology.

“iGEM, in its sixth year, is growing exponentially. Five teams took part in the first open competition in 2004, and this year 1,700 undergraduates in 112 teams from 26 different countries entered.

“This science is as good or better than at conferences,” Tom Knight, one of synthetic biology’s founders, told me over supper after the first day, as we swapped science fiction recommendations with the Cambridge professors….

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