At 3:00 pm on November 4th, Eastern Time (November 5th, Beijing time), the 2019 International Genetic Engineering Machinery Contest (iGEM for short) ended at the Hines Conference Center in Boston. This year, a total of 344 teams from around the world participated, and the Xiamen University team won the gold medal again.

The iGEM competition, founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a top international competition in the field of synthetic biology. The participating teams need to use standard biobricks to build genetic circuits, establish effective mathematical models, and implement forecast, manipulation and measurement for sophisticated artificial biosystem, and complete the competition with social research, practice, on-site defense and poster display.

This year, our university’s iGEM team “XMU-China” consists of more than 20 undergraduates from different faculties including College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Life Sciences, Software, Pharmacy, Public Health, Energy, Arts, Mathematical Sciences, and Environmental Ecology. Under the guidance of Prof. BaishanFang from the College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, the team used synthetic biology to simplify the classification and simulation of complex group relationships. After nearly a year of preparation and experiments, the team won the gold award again, which is also the 9th gold medal that Xiamen University students have won in the competition.

The Xiamen University iGEM team's participation in the United States has received strong support from Xiamen University's Academic Affairs Office, Graduate School, International Office, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy College, Xiamen Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biotechnologyand other relevant units.

（Translation: Yue Lei）