22 May 2012

£2500 boost from Nine Trades for Dundee student team

A University of Dundee team hoping to make an instant return to the world finals of an international student competition have received a huge boost from the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee.

The Nine Trades have donated £2500 to help fund the team entering the 2012 iGEM competition, the premiere undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition.

"A team from Dundee was one of only three in the UK to make it to the world finals of iGEM in Boston last year," said Dr Dyce Davidson in the Division of Mathematics at the University.

"We are hoping to emulate that success this year and to get such strong support from a local institution like the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee is a fantastic boost to our efforts."

iGem - the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) - sees student teams given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools over the summer, they use these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. They then design, construct and test new parts, finally putting these together in living cells to create a new "biological machine". Examples range from constructing sensors to detect and treat polluted water to making yoghurt with the flavour already built in.

For more on iGEM see: www.igem.org.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
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