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From 2013.igem.org

Outreach

Our research has many promising outcomes in the society; from the production of a super compound, geraniol,that is a possible bio-fuel, cancer growth inhibitor and insect repellent, to the creation of novel gene regulation tools that will allow Archaea to be more accessible in the field of synthetic biology. We truly have a passion for research and the field of synthetic biology,and we wanted share this passion with others.

Middle School

Our goal for Outreach was to teach students more about the importance of bacteria/archaea, and how we could use these organisms to help the world around us. In the pictures below, members of the iGEM team are working with Clark Middle School students in Athens, Georgia. The students got a chance to see how much bacteria lived around them after swabbing common areas of the classroom onto agar plates and observing how many colonies grew. They also learned about how we could alter bacteria after looking at plates of bacteria that were engineered to glow in the dark. Ultimately the students learned about the common uses of bacteria, and had a good time doing it.

We believe that this field of synthetic biology is very important for the future. If we expose this area of science and engineering to the younger generations, perhaps they could get more involved and use bio-engineering to help in this world's challenges of medicine and energy.