About This Team
We are the ONCE_China team, a team aiming to industrialization, formed by overgraduate iGEMer alumni. Here, we would like to talk about how we first came together for the iGEM competition, why we formed the ONCE_China, and our vision for the long road ahead.
iGEM and The Gap Between The Ideal and Reality of Synthetic Biology
The original goal of iGEM was to give the world a glimpse of the young power in the field of Synthetic Biology (SynBio) and to discover the potential applications of synthetic biology in the real world. Over the past 18 years, iGEM has done a great job of achieving this goal.
Looking back at our former iGEM projects - the culmination of the wisdom of youth - they often left us in awe of the endless possibilities and fascination of biotechnologies. iGEM has moved from the first to the third decade of the 21st century, leading generations of talent into the field of synthetic biology, and we began to wonder if iGEM can do more: let the world see that the field of synthetic biology is moving from laboratory research to real-life applications.
We're known as ONCE, but many of us have participated in iGEM more than once, and of course have more than one Gold Medal to our credit. Is it a Wiki page that we traded with staying ups for, or a few new part names in the registry? In fact, most of the collegiate iGEM team projects stay in the lab stage due to time and resource constraints, and only a little of them even turn into a published paper. Our great ambition to change the world at the Human Practices stage was stopped at the end of the competition by the huge gap in industrialization between the ideal and the reality; and the ideal of changing the world may have been lost in the day-to-day repetitive works.
But, we iGEMers have always believed that synthetic biology will eventually become a world-changing force. In iGEM's third decade, on our Nth iGEM journey, our goal is no longer to win a prize, but to pioneer the future of synthetic biology. So this time, we, the iGEM Alumni, want to do something big - to work together to create and implement synthetic biology products that can truly impact the world.
ONCE & MORE: Use Synbio to Solve Real Industry Problems
In the remarkable history of synthetic biology, all the highlights show us the infinite possibilities of synthetic technology innovation. Technologically: high throughput, automated technologies, or computational enzymology, DNA part libraries, etc. are all moving in a better direction.
However, there are many painful failures in the previous projects, whether it is Amyris or Zymergen, there are many attempts and of course many failures. The advancement from upstream to application layer means a deeper understanding of the industry, means that from the very beginning, we need to start from the actual problems and understand the pain and difficulties of the industry. We focus on environmental protection, carbon neutrality and other social issues, and achieve the professionally technical barrier in the selection of product and chassis engineering to form a one-stop solution. With this as our starting point, we believe that, like Big Pharma in the pharmaceutical field, accumulating experience in one-stop platform-based solutions is the key to becoming a full-fledged synthetic biology company in the future.
We also see that on the industrial side, many companies have started to call themselves "synthetic biology companies" uncharacteristically. We think this at least means that people are paying more attention to synthetic biology.
Therefore, ONCE hopes to make efforts in the upstream of consumer products through in-depth research of the industry, to make in-depth optimization of product selection for industry pain points, and to form its own unique advantages through its unique synthetic biology platform technology.
MORE & BETTER: Start the Next Era of Synbio
It is obvious that the COVID-19 pandemic directly intervened in the course of human history, and at the same time gave us a deep understanding of the power of life sciences - Moderna's mRNA therapy went from an experimental treatment to a decisive weapon in the war over COVID-19 in a matter of months. The life science industry, led by synthetic biology, has never been more favored by capital: the synthetic biology field has raised a record amount of nearly $8 billion in 2020 alone, and is still growing rapidly, with the amount of funding expected to be the sum of all years since the statistics began in 2009.
In the US, Ginkgo Bioworks, a synthetic biology company founded by the MIT iGEM team, has announced a $17.5 billion merger and IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, and is still on its expand. In China, Bluepha, founded by two iGEM alumni from Peking University and Tsinghua University, has also announced the completion of a RMB 1.5 billion Series B financing and the establishment of a Bluepha mega-fab in Yancheng, Jiangsu province. This time, ONCE have the full support of Bluepha, and our pioneer has already explored every step of the industry chain. With Bluepha's accumulated process data and engineering experience, we are able to realize the rapid transformation of ONCE product pipeline under the flywheel effect.
Synthetic biology is not an industry that can flourish with the underlying technology, but in many cases the underlying knowledge, scale production, supply chain management and integration of business resources are more important for the product selection. We hope that more iGEMers, researcher or industries, will devote into this industry and work together to promote its progress. We are all facing the arrival of a brand new era.
This is the best time for us, the best time for ONCE_China to be in. We are here to invite you to join us in witnessing the power of SynBio and embarking on the last mile to the future.
Meet Our Team
BangYan Kong
Hiiii! This is BangYan Kong(Cardinal), and I'm happy to see you here! Once iGEMer,more than iGEM team.Now it is my third iGEM trip. I appreciate everyone who helped, supported, and guided us in the right direction. As one of the team leaders, I am so proud of our team members and our excellent project! I bet you will love it. I look forward to seeing you in the jamboree!
Dawei You
Dawei You is a PhD student of Environmental Engineering in Peking University. This is his first time attending iGEM and he is very happy to meet everyone. He has a solid training and a strong interest in synthetic biology and natural products. Currently, he is mainly working on the modification of cyanobacterial chassis, expecting to use cyanobacteria to effectively capture carbon dioxide in the air and contribute to Carbon Neutrality.
Hui Sun
Sun Hui is a master's degree student in Peking University Pharmaceutical College, and her research field is pharmaceutical chemistry. She is good at the synthesis, identification, activity determination and docking of small molecules or organic compounds.
Jinao Wang
Hi, this is Jinao Wang(Michael), and it is my second year participating in iGEM! I am the student leader of BJU_China in 2021. As the youngest member of the team, I had a wonderful experience this year working with my amazing team members and learned a lot by taking part in iGEM once again. We had made great progress in our project this year, and I am excited to tell you more about it!
Linyu Zheng
PhD candidate in Peking Union Medical College, Team leader of CPU_CHINA in 2021. We need love and peace.
Siyuan Li
Siyuan Li is a PhD candidate in Shanghai Jiaotong University. 2020 iGEM Tongji China Team Leader，2021 iGEM Tongji China Team Advisor, who believe evolution makes protein powerful.
Shizheng Tian
A senior majoring in Biological science at Fudan University.2020 iGEM Fudan Team Leader，2021 iGEM Fudan Team Advisor. Do something you won't regret.
Yiying Zhang
Hi, this is Yiying Zhang. For the moment, I’m a senior student in Tongji University, majoring in biotechnology. Last year, I participated in iGEM as the team leader of Tongji_China. I learned a lot about synthetic biology and made friends who share the same ambitions and interests in my last iGEM journey. It’s so excited for me to join ONCE, a team with experienced iGEMers from different cities in China. I hope that we can progress together as a great team and ahieve our goals!
Yanfeng Liu
Yanfeng Liu is always willing to exchange ideas in the fields of synthetic biology. As a student major in clinical pharmacy, he is especially interested in the application of synthetic biology in the biomedicine. He can motivate our team members in the process of the project.
Yuqi Wang
Hi guys, here is YUQI WANG, a bio-tech background traveler focused on primary market investment.
Yunzhe Kang
Student leader and team baby-sitter. iGEM Alumni.The chief designer of the project, who picked the topic and constructed the project. I arrange the works of team members and is also specifically in charge of the web lab group. I also use my remarkable sociability to assist our team to implement collaboration with other teams.
Yuxuan Shen
Yuxuan Shen is a master student of Peking University, majoring in Medical Technology. She has a strong interest in Pharmacy and hopes to discover new drug targets. At the same time, she is also in love with Synthetic Biology. The subtle engineering of cells is not only a kind of mental gymnastics, but also a kind of creation, which is closely related to the industry. She is looking forward to being part of the world-changing journey of synthetic biology.
Yuelin Yang
Hi, I’m Yuelin Yang , I’m excited to join in the iGEM. This is my second time participating in an International competition. The first time was MCM/ICM (Mathematical Contest In Modeling / Interdisciplinary Contest In Modeling),and I was very fortunate to receive the Meritorious Winner. I have enjoyed working with our team members who are passionate and dedicated .I hope we can get good results.
Yilong Xu
Yilong Xu is the major designer and executor of wet lab work and plays an important role in the project's design. He characterized parts, de novo synthesized BOS, and engineered our fast-growth yeast strain. He also demonstrated the combination of UIP and FPP pathways in E. coli. What's more, he also participated in human practice.
Zhenwen Lee
Zhenwen Lee is a Phd student of Peking University, majoring in Pharmaceutics. He is easy-going and hardworking.Frontier pharmacy is inseparable from the preparation of new materials, and the use of bioengineering biomimetic materials is a very hot topic. He hopes to skillfully combine pharmacy and synthetic biology to create more useful and new nanoparticles.