Help Undergrads Make an Impact with Microalgae Engineering!

Our team is made up of students from all walks of life, united by a shared vision — to use synthetic biology to address real-world problems. We come from diverse academic backgrounds, but we all have one thing in common: a passion for science and a belief that we can make a difference by offering a local synbio solution to a local problem! We want to use the iGEM or International Genetically Engineered Machines competition as a platform to showcase our work in Paris, France. In order to register and attend, we need help securing the registration fees of $6500USD and $3000 USD, respectively, just to be recognized as a team!

The money will be directed to the lab expenses we have to grow, test, and engineer our organisms. This year is limited to model organisms (E.coli and C. reinhardtii), but we would like to bring in a new strain as a potential star organism for our idea! One litre of media is $55USD, and our incubator is $80CAD per 8 hours. These expenses are the hardest for us to recover as they are the most used. We are estimating our lab expenses to total to $4500 CAD for four months, but our prices per use for equipment is going up!

As a team, we spend months researching, designing, and testing our ideas. Along the way, we’ve face challenges, a goal of engineering success, as we design, test, build and learn from our cycles and contribute to real progress in the synthetic biology field.

We’ve already achieved our THIRD silver medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition (iGEM). These successes inspire us to keep pushing forward, knowing that we’re on the verge of something transformative.

With our project, we hope to show Hamilton and other cities that are reliant on industries that emit CO2, to consider microalgae bioreactors as a way to produce proteins of interest. We suggested that the chloroplast (the light to energy compartment) in microalgae as the new status quo for antimicrobial peptide production. Not only did our proposal address the ongoing issues that occur when trying to bio produce these proteins, but also supported the development of a circular economy and sustainable innovation for local public health distribution! By doing this we can move biomanufacturing from using tons of sugar and human food as fuel to freely available CO2, saving and directing our food resources to where they matter to ensure food security for the future!

See more on our wiki: Our Wiki

Like many research projects, there are expenses involved in bringing our ideas to life. From lab equipment and materials to travel costs for the iGEM competition, we need funding to cover these essential costs.

Even a small donation of 20$ can help us expand our popular high school internship to engage more students! With your help, we can turn our innovative ideas into reality and take them to the iGEM competition by helping us bridge the gap for the increasing registration cost for the competition.

By donating, you’re not just supporting our team. You’re investing in the future. You’re helping to build solutions that could address some of the world’s most pressing problems. You’re empowering young scientists who are passionate about changing the world.

We can keep you updated through our newsletter: SynBio Spotlight

You can sign up here, or follow us if you have any interest at all on what we accomplish as the cycle continues!

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