On August 6, the final of the SynBio Challenge international competition was held in Shenzhen Guangdong Province, China. The NSU Natural Sciences Department (NSD)Team, GeneMeow, won the gold medal in the "Synthetic Cell" category. The Team solved the problem of developing a DNA sequence no longer than 140 bp, ensuring a high expression of green fluorescent protein. The GeneMeow Team included six NSD students who had finished their 3rd year in the Biology program (Valeria Romanova, Ekaterina Bolotova, Nail Bikeev, Nikita Ivanov, Ulyana Borovikova, and Dmitry Kurbatsky). The Team was formed fr om two strong teams that previously participated in the Biotournament and achieved good results.
The final was held in a festival format wh ere each team presented their solutions on the stage. In addition, the DNA sequences proposed by the participants were synthesized by the competition organizers, inserted into plasmids with a fluorescent protein gene that is used to check the DNA sequence, and, during the festival, the synthesized sequences were visualized and compared to see which team had the brightest glow. The brightness of the glow became one of the criteria for assessing the work of each team.
Sergey Sedykh, PhD, Senior Lecturer at the NSU Institute of Medicine and Medical Technologies and a judge in the SynBio Challenge competition, commented,
The NSU Team demonstrated that the direction of synthetic biology, and life sciences in general, is actively developing at Novosibirsk State University at the Natural Sciences Department and at the Institute of Medicine and Medical Technologies. GeneMeow confirmed with their own example that the NSU motto "We will not make you smarter, we will teach you to think" works on the international level.
The competition was organized by the Shenzhen University of High Technologies. A total of 1,800 students registered to participate in the competition this year. 1,000 participants representing six countries (China, Russia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia) made it to the finals.
The participation of the NSU Team was financed by the Academic Mobility Project at the NSU Institute of Medicine and Medical Technologies Priority 2030 Program.
