Microbe Research Team Awarded Gold Medal at 2019 iGEM Competition

November 18, 2019 • by Cason Hunwick
Students accept award on stage from three people dressed in formal wear

(From right) Genevieve Mortensen and Noor Radde onstage at the ceremony accepting their award. Photo courtesy of Justin Knight.


Group of five student team members seated near their poster

The 2019 undergraduate iGEM team in front of their research poster. (Front from left) Alex MacAskill, Genevieve Mortensen, Shireen Shah. (Back from left) Noor Radde, Diya Bhat.

The team also received the Best Measurement Special Prize, an award that recognizes projects that create repeatable, well-described and well-calibrated measurements that are useful for other researchers. They were also a finalist for Best Foundational Advance, a prize that recognizes technologies that "help to make new accomplishments possible" according to the iGEM website.

Team member Alex MacAskill, a biochemistry junior, said the achievements reflect UT's prowess in the field.

"Going to this this international competition and winning a big award like this, it shows that UT has a presence on the global stage and a presence in the up and coming field of synthetic biology," MacAskill said.

Shireen Shah said the award proves the impact of their work.

"Winning the award is proof that what we do here changes the world," Shah said.

Due to funding constraints, only five of the 15 team members were able to attend the event in Boston, Mishler said, adding that the goal for future iGEM teams is to secure funds to send more students who represent the school on an international level.

While the burden-o-meter iGEM team consisted of UT undergraduates, it is not only universities that compete. At last year's iGEM competition, a team of high school researchers advised by University of Texas at Austin professor of molecular biosciences Andy Ellington took the bronze award for their project. 

The project, titled 'Infection Detection,' was run by students enrolled at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy in Austin who set out to create a kit that could rapidly diagnose the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in infants.

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