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[http://partsregistry.org/cgi/partsdb/pgroup.cgi?pgroup=iGEM2007&group=Virginia BIOBRICKS]

[http://openwetware.org/wiki/IGEM:VGEM/2007/Notebook eNOTEBOOK]

[http://www.seas.virginia.edu/VGEM/ WEBSITE]

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. After several projects were scraped, we focused the majority of our summer research time on just a handful of [http://www.openwetware.org/wiki/IGEM:VGEM/2007/Projects projects].

We are advised by [http://www.che.virginia.edu/fernandez.html Erik Fernandez] (Chemical Engineering), [http://bme.virginia.edu/people/faculty/papin/ Jason Papin] (Biomedical Engineering), and [http://minerva.acc.virginia.edu/biology/Fac/Bauerle.html Ron Bauerle] (Biology) in addition to our graduate student mentor Brianne Ray (Microbiology) and lab specialist Kay Christopher (Biology).

Project

At the 2007 iGEM Jamboree, we will present our synthetic biology approach to developing a metabolic pathway that utilizes biomass, particularly cellulose, and sunlight as energy sources for the biosynthesis of butanol as an alternative liquid transportation fuel. Please read more about our project by navigating with the links at the top of the page.

Email the VGEM team

Acknowledgements

VGEM Team benefactors at UVA include the following groups:

[http://www.virginia.edu/vprgs/ The Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies]
[http://www.seas.virginia.edu/vef/ The University of Virginia Engineering Foundation]
[http://www.seas.virginia.edu/ The School of Engineering and Applied Science]
[http://http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/som/home.cfm The School of Medicine]
[http://www.bme.virginia.edu/ The Department of Biomedical Engineering]
[http://www.che.virginia.edu/ The Department of Chemical Engineering]
[http://www.virginia.edu/biology The Department of Biology]

Our corporate sponsors include the following:

[http://www.dna20.com/ http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:twELO5rfkLG1VM:http://www.teknova.com/dna20/us/images/dna_c.jpg]