Team:Cambridge/Society

iGEMers on iGEM

The iGEM competition gathers hundreds of undergraduates together to explore the potential of synthetic biology. What happens to iGEM alumni after the Jamboree? Does the experience of such a unique summer project change the career paths of iGEM students? What becomes of all the innovation and hard-won expertise developed whilst building biobricks?

To answer these questions, the 2011 Cambridge team conducted a census of iGEM alumni. Take the questionnaire here, read our discussion, or see some of our results.

Some previous iGEMers were generous enough to grant us interviews, allowing us to record their experiences of life after iGEM. As well as providing the quotes and case studies in our report, you can see excerpts from their interviews. (With thanks to Veronica Ranner for assistance in filming)

Why talk to iGEMmers?

After a talk on best practice for Human Practices projects by Andy Balmer at the UK iGEM meetup, we were inspired to focus on the underexplored areas of synthetic biology and its influence. We decided to focus on an introspective look at iGEM, asking the alumni, and ourselves, how this competition is changing our lives.

As well as looking at the big picture of synthetic biology and the challenges and opportunities it can bring to us, we would like to encourage more teams to reflect on their own thoughts and feelings. Only though regularly assessing your role, and your current investigtations can you hope to become a better scientist. The growing field of synthetic biology will be shaped by the people who do synthetic biology, so we hope to see a greater consideration of what makes people want to join the field. We hope that our investigation will make us better scientists and inspire more people to join synthetic biology.