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UCL Undergraduates Win Gold at 2024 iGEM in Paris
12 November 2024
We are incredibly proud to announce that the UCL iGEM 2024 team formed of Biochemical Engineering, Biochemistry and Natural Sciences undergraduate students has won a Gold Medal at the iGEM 2024 Jamboree in Paris!
iGEM is a non-profit organisation promoting synthetic biology through education, competition, and open community collaboration. Every two years, UCL enters a team of undergraduates from across the university who will be based within the Department of Biochemical Engineering to compete in the iGEM competition. This year, the UCL team developed SepScan, a risk-predictive tool for underserved women in India that can assess whether a urinary tract infection is likely to progress into sepsis. SepScan aims to provide a quick, quantitative, and affordable diagnostic tool to assist clinicians in making critical decisions in low- and middle-income countries. The team succeeded in delivering the functional proof of concept.
The team was supported by a team of supervisors and advisors from the Department of Biochemical Engineering and sponsored by the Faculty of Engineering, the Department of Biochemical Engineering, Vax-Hub and other donors. The students had a fantastic time at the Grand Jamboree, meeting and competing with more than 400 other teams and learning about their inspiring projects. While the 2024 iGEM competition has come to an end, the team is committed to further validating their design and working towards making SepScan a commercially accessible product in the future.
"It's been incredibly rewarding to support our talented students in growing a conceptual idea into an ambitious engineering biology project in a few months. In working on a Sepsis diagnostic tool, they've tackled a real-world issue and, in the process, developed a range of important work and life skills from problem-solving to entrepreneurial thinking, while forging new friendships, and making international connections. A huge thank you to all Co-Is Rana Khalife, Jack Jeffries and Chris Barnes and colleagues and PhD student advisors who helped." Dr Stefanie Frank, Associate Professor in Engineering Biology at Biochemical Engineering, and UCL iGEM PI
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Degrees at UCL Biochemical Engineering