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Team:Macquarie Australia/Conference
From 2013.igem.org
Conference
Amp up how amazing we've been at leading synth bio for Aus, then lead into conference... Macquarie University has been at the forefront of synthetic biology, specifically igem, within Australia. Since 2010, Macquarie University has been the first Australian institution to enter and compete in iGEM. Therefore since synthetic biology is still only an emerging field of science within Australia, it is appropriate that Macquarie University be the ones who host a synthetic biology conference.
The Synthetic Biology and Bio-Engineering Workshop which will take place on the 15th November 2013. In this inaugural meeting, we will bring together some of Australia’s best synthetic biology and bio-engineering scientists who are making rapid progress in the design and manipulation of biological systems.
Synthetic Biology and Bio-Engineering are inherently interdisciplinary fields. Our goal is to provide an intimate meeting where participants from a broad range of research areas including the biological sciences, medical sciences and engineering fields will have ample opportunity for interaction. We hope this meeting will encourage creative discussions about how we can use new biological tools to begin to solve some of the grand challenges facing us today. Speakers will introduce and define Synthetic Biology, what it can be used for, and what new tools are being developed to make biology easier to engineer. Presentations will also be given from the ‘second wave’ of younger synthetic biologists who will showcase their achievements from the 2013 international Genetically Engineered Machine ‘iGEM’ competition.
Program Sessions
- Synthetic Biology Explained
- Ethics and Intellectual Property
- Applications of Bio-engineering and Synthetic Biology
- Updates from MQ and USyd iGEM teams
Background: Macquarie University has participated in iGEM for the past four years (2010-2013). The number of Australian teams participating has NOT increased during this time. In fact, it decreased from 3 teams in 2010 to only 1 in 2012. This year there are 2 teams from Australia, University of Sydney and ourselves.
Why? We believe that the lack of participation in iGEM from teams in the Oceania region may be attributed to:
• Australia's seasons are opposite to those in the northern hemisphere, so too is our academic calendar. This makes conforming to the time-frame of iGEM difficult as the ‘iGEM summer’ coincides with our academic winter term.
• High travel costs: It costs approximately $2,500 for each student to participate at the regional Jamboree.
• Synthetic Biology in Australia is still in its infancy. There is little to no financial and structural support for synbio activities in Australia. It is not represented by any scientific organisation and no funding is specifically linked to synthetic biology.
Goals: We want to make Synthetic Biology visible to the Australian Academic community. We want to showcase the iGEM initiative and educate other Australian Universities how they can also participate in the iGEM competition. We want to see the number of Australian teams who participate in iGEM increase. Eventually, we want to hold an Oceania iGEM Jamboree event!
AIMS
Organise a conference for the academic research community to bring together Australia’s most prominent researchers in the field of synthetic biology.
APPROACH
Invited Speakers:We identified key leading researchers in the Oceania scientific community who themselvesidentify as being associated with the field of synthetic biology or the closely related field of bio-engineering.We worked with our mentors (Dr Louise Brown, Dr Robert Willows, Professor Nicki Packer and Mr YagizAksoy) to invite the scientists we have identified. Invitations were sent out in June 2013 and were very pleased to receive a 100% positive response from all our invited speakers. Our invited speakers can be seen on our webpage http://biofocus.science.mq.edu.au/eventsandnews/events/conference/2013-program-outline.html.
