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Welcome to the official iGEM wiki for the Virginia Genetically Engineered Machine Team

The Virginia Genetically Engineered Machine (VGEM) Team is a student-run synthetic biology research group at the University of Virginia. The VGEM Team was founded by George McArthur (Chemical Engineering) in December 2006 so that UVA could compete in the 2007 iGEM competition. There are four other undergraduate team members: Kevin Hershey (Chemical Engineering), Amy Schell (Biomedical Engineering), Ranjan Khan (Biomedical Engineering), and Emre Ruhi (Biology). Our five member team read 42 research papers relevant to synthetic biology over winter break and met for an hour each week during the spring semester to teach ourselves the basic concepts of this emerging discipline and to brainstorm project ideas. Our research is divided between two projects, Bacterial Melanogenesis and Butanol Biosynthesis. We are also currently designing an undergraduate course in synthetic biology titled Biological Systems Design Seminar.

We are advised by Erik Fernandez (Chemical Engineering), Jason Papin (Biomedical Engineering), and Ron Bauerle (Biology) in addition to our graduate student mentor Brianne Ray (Microbiology) and lab specialist Kay Christopher (Biology). We have received financial support from the following groups at UVA:

The Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies
The University of Virginia Engineering Foundation
The School of Engineering and Applied Science
The School of Medicine
The Department of Biomedical Engineering
The Department of Chemical Engineering
The Department of Biology

Sponsors:

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