Members of the Synthetic Biology Society are in the unique position to, while still students, work in a fully-equipped biological laboratory space with considerable control over the experiments they design and carry out. We generally start each year by teaching members the basic techniques and principles they need to know to get started in synthetic biology through hands-on workshops, then offer a chance to join on long-term projects in the lab. Depending on experience level, pairs or teams of a few members then can work together under the supervision of our committee. Some of the successes of our recent projects are described below.

2019 to present - Microbial Interaction Engineering

Since 2019, we have focused our project work on an original topic designed by our members : to create a modular set of molecular tools that can be used to engineer microbial communities with specific interactions.

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2017 to 2018 - Genetic circuit for edge-detection

In a project combining the cloning of a genetic circuit and differential equation modeling, we experimented with ways to make a petri dish coated in bacteria act as a kind of ‘photographic film’, where the bacteria would produce pigment along the edges where light was shining over the plate.

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2015 to 2016 - Open-source microscopy

The society’s initial projects took their roots in the highly successful iGEM team that the University of Cambridge had from 2005 to 2015. Our initial work continued on the idea of building the “OpenScope”, to make microscopy easier and more accessible)

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