Team Tokyo Tech second at 2022 iGEM competition in Paris

Team Tokyo Tech has won the silver medal at the 2022 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) held in Paris, France from October 26 to 28. The contest was attended by 356 teams from over 40 countries and regions.

Tokyo Tech's (from left) Okumura, Enomoto, Iwashige, Gokitani, Chinen at iGEM competition in Paris

The iGEM competition is an international contest in which multidisciplinary student teams design, build, and test projects using cutting-edge synthetic biology, an approach used in designing new biological systems. Each team presents their results to a panel of judges.

This year, Team Tokyo Tech consisted of 27 bachelor-program students — twenty-one from the School of Life Science and Technology, three from the School of Computing, and one each from the School of Science, School of Engineering, and School of Materials and Chemical Technology.

The team's project was a continuation of the 2018 Tokyo Tech project, which focused on the establishment of dengue virus serotype prediction and detection systems. The research of the 2022 team aimed to contribute to the development and distribution of vaccines and drugs by predicting prevalent dengue virus serotypes, for example by developing a new fluorescence measurement device to gauge the fluorescence of a dengue virus serotype detection kit that uses fluorescent proteins.

Hinako Iwashige

3rd year, Life Science and Technology

We worked on this project for almost a year, and although we experienced hardships and frustrations, we were able to overcome them with the help of our academic supervisors, team members, and many other people who supported us. Until last academic year, our projects consisted only of the "wet field" for biological experiments and the "dry field" for information modeling, but this year we added a "hardware field," which involves the creation of equipment.

I feel like we have evolved into a diverse team that involves members from various Tokyo Tech Schools. Although we continue to face financial and other challenges, there is also a great deal to be gained, so I hope that the younger members of the Tokyo Tech iGEM team will continue to give it their all.