China Meetup

As time passes by more and more Chinese students are getting involved in synthetic biology. The number of Chinese teams had increased to 20 this year by the time we came up with the idea of holding a conference and inviting all teams. It was of much significance in that the new teams are lack of experience in the 2011 competition and a platform for communication and cooperation between teams was badly needed. The iGEM 2011 China Meetup was held at USTC from July 29th to July 31th.

The theme of this conference was “iGEM -- the breeding ground for the next generation of synthetic biologists". During the conference, well-known experts were invited to promulgate their latest research findings and elucidate the development trend of synthetic biology, and there were also insightful students making subjective reports and reviews. Teams on the scene displayed the current progress of their projects, and shared their experiences with conference participants.

This conference turned out to be very effective and helpful. After two days’ presentation and discussion students from different teams got the main content of each other’s project. Through discussion in the evening and after meeting many new ideas were generated and students from different teams had their problems fixed.

Chinese teams began to participate International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition from 2007, the number has increased to 20 from only 4 at the beginning. Considering that the new teams are lack of experience in the 2011 competition and a platform for communication and cooperation between teams is badly needed, a meeting for all Chinese iGEMers -- iGEM 2011 China Meetup -- was held at University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) from July 29th to July 31th.

The theme of this conference is "iGEM -- the breeding ground for the next generation of synthetic biologists". During the conference, well-known experts was invited to promulgate their latest research findings and elucidate the development trend of synthetic biology, and there were also insightful students to make subjective reports and reviews. iGEM teams displayed the current progress of their projects, and shared their experiences with conference participants.

Prof. Xueming Zhao from Tianjin University, Prof. Michael Q. Zhang from CSHL & Tsinghua University and Prof. Jiarui Wu from SIBS & USTC were invited to give lectures. The conference was open to all undergraduates, graduate students and researchers who are interested in iGEM and synthetic biology. Participants interacted with each other and the lecturers during the conference. The conference is supported by School of Life Science, USTC and the Committee of Communist Youth League of China, USTC.

Scientific Program