iGEM Competition

The iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) Competition is one of the largest gatherings for student researchers in the world. Each year, teams from around the world design a project that utilizes engineering biology principles to solve a complex problem and analyze the ethical implications of such a solution -- these solutions are presented at the "Giant Jamboree" conference in Boston.

I was a member of the Waterloo iGEM team during the 2015 and 2016 competition years. It was here that I fell in love with laboratory research, and my desire to learn as much as I could about the world of synthetic biology led me to become one of the top-contributing members of the team.

Laboratory Skills

• Transfected Arabidopsis thaliana with CRISPR-Cas9 system using Agrobacterium-mediated floral dip, agroinfiltration, and protoplasts to provide resistance to CaMV virus
• Plasmid amplification, isolation, purification in Escherichia coli
• PCR
• Gel electrophoresis
• Dot blots
• Protoplast creation