2023-11-07 20:00:11
The iGEM competition took place at Porte de Versailles, in Paris, from November 2 to 5, 2023. MATTEO COGLIATI / IGEM
Recycle waste, store carbon in the oceans, digest microplastics, find more virtuous fertilizers, control insect pests, produce proteins without harming animals, assemble DNA differently, propose new gene therapies… Synthetic biology , which intends to modify living things on a molecular scale to solve problems of all kinds, has its high mass, which was held in Paris, from November 2 to 5. The iGEM Foundation (for International Genetically Engineered Machine), born in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2003, took up residence at Porte de Versailles to organize an international competition bringing together 400 teams of students from around fifty countries.
These budding researchers compete in ingenuity, and their predecessors, who have participated in this competition for around twenty years and call themselves “iGEMeurs”, are there to remind them that they are “the future leaders of synthetic biology”. Many biotech companies and start-ups have former competitors in their ranks. This is the case of Xavier Duportet, president and co-founder of Eligo Bioscience, specializing in precision medicine, “which has 6 iGEMeurs among its 35 employees”, he said. His team won the prize for the best fundamental advance in 2010. He can cite “seven or eight” French start-ups created by young people who passed through this incubator, “a unique training experience”he assures.
Laia Darné and her comrades from the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Lyon, who graduated in September, would follow the same path. Their team obtained a second place in 2022 with their system making parts of plants attacked by pathogens luminescent. This tool could make it possible to test the effectiveness of alternative pesticides. “We have not yet created our start-upshe says. We hope to meet people in the industry and network. » An additional year of more business-oriented training should allow them to have clearer ideas about the prospects for developing and protecting their invention.
The FBI also has its stand
By prioritizing innovations imagined by young people, iGEM offers a fantastic showcase for a sometimes controversial discipline. “With synthetic biology, we went straight to important things, like medicine, and the first generation of researchers justified all that research by saying, ‘This is useful.’ It was a mistake, recalls Drew Endy (Stanford University), who was, with Tom Knight and Randy Rettberg, one of the founders of iGEM, while they were teachers at MIT. We can do better. This is why I appreciate the playful spirit, but also responsibility, of iGEM. »
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