Two NTU undergraduate teams designed innovative biological systems that earned them some of the top innovation awards in Boston, U.S.A., last November.  With its Skin Guardian, a genetically-modified e. coli bacteria that promises to whiten and add fragrance to the skin, team TaiDa grabbed a Gold Medal at the 2014 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition.  Meanwhile, team NTU claimed a Silver Medal, a Best Presentation Award, and an Audience Choice Award with NanoJellyFish, a versatile nano-robot that targets different viruses to ward off disease, at the 2014 biomolecular design competition for students, BioMOD.

The iGEM competition is a global synthetic biology competition that invites student teams to design and engineer simple biological systems from standardized, interchangeable parts and operate them within the cells of living bacteria.  In the competition, teams are presented with a supply of different lego-like biological parts, called BioBricks, from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts.  These building blocks include such genetic components as promoters, terminators, reporter elements, and plasmid backbones.  The students assemble the parts while combining them with new parts of their own creation into biological mechanisms, and operate them in living cells.

The nearly two-dozen students of iGEM-TaiDa came from a range of departments and were supported by the university and local enterprises over their ten-month effort to develop their Skin Guardian.  Designed as a skin-care product, this novel genetic circuit metabolizes the fatty acids of the oil and sebum secreted by the skin in order to whiten the skin, soften wrinkles, while creating a rose-like smell.

Meanwhile, the BioMOD-NTU team’s NanoJellyFish was constructed using two pairs of genetic structures, each a domed hemisphere wielding two tentacles to simulate the shape of a real jellyfish.  The team used DNA origami technology to construct the jellyfish out of DNA staples and scaffolds.  Serving as a means of drug delivery, the jellyfish joins together to capture a targeted virus and releases a protein to neutralize the pathogen.

Both teams were enrolled in the course “Biochemical Technology Project Design and Implementation,” co-taught by Prof. Yen-Rong Chen of the Department of Biochemical Science and Technology and Prof. Hong-Ren Jiang of the Institute of Applied Mechanics.