Hello, I’m Minkyung (Irene) Sung, a senior attending the American International School of Johannesburg in Johannesburg, South Africa. I find it a great honor to serve as the team leader for iGEM 2022. As the team leader, I have had the valuable opportunity to socialize with people of similar interests and also to extend my knowledge about Synthetic Biology. Participating in multiple aspects of the iGEM competition, ranging from special award initiatives to human practices, collaboration, wet lab, and dry lab, I have obtained further insight into the importance of Synthetic Biology and also further research in this field. Being able to apply my theoretical knowledge to solve real-world issues that impact our daily lives has been a very meaningful experience that I will never forget. I would like to thank everyone that has made this journey possible!

Hello! I’m Irene Choi, a junior attending Singapore American School. Being part of iGEM 2022 as the Team Co-Leader of Korea_HS, I was provided the opportunity to engage with students who share the same passion for Synthetic Biology. As a team co-leader, I was responsible for overall team collaboration, human practices, education, wet lab, dry lab organization, and inclusivity initiatives. It was an honor to participate in iGEM and have a chance to collaborate with various other teams with the same passion for Synthetic Biology. It was a great chance to learn a lot not only about the biology content itself but also about interacting with different teams and overcoming unforeseen challenges together as a team. I’ll show my gratitude to fellow Korea_HS team members, advisors, instructors, and the iGEM family!

Hello, I’m Chaewon (Ellen) Kim, a sophomore attending Korea International School. At Korea HS, I am one of the collaboration team leaders and a dry lab member. Working as a collaboration team leader has blessed me with the opportunity to learn and show many things. As anticipated at the beginning of the season, I was able to acquire not only deep insight and experience in our topic but also social affiliations with global iGEMers. I was lucky enough to be yielded with extensive resources and equipment to properly delve into our projects from our professor, advisor, and instructor. Spending a rather long time of 6 months with my teammates gradually changed my thoughts about the competition. I didn't think of iGEM as a mere science competition but as a chance for students like myself to get one step closer to their dreams.

Hello, I’m Ga Yun Kim, a junior attending CheongShim International Academy, South Korea. It is an honor to be part of a wonderful team and serve as a collaboration team co-leader, an SDG team member, and a dry lab team member. As a student who loves studying biology and environmental science, participating in iGEM was a pleasing experience for me. Working as a co-leader of the collaboration team, I had an excellent opportunity to cooperate with others who share the same interests and learn many things from their brilliant ideas. Though it was such a long, arduous journey, it was always exciting and inspiring to learn more about Synthetic Biology and apply my knowledge to solve real-life problems. It was my pleasure to meet my lovely teammates and make delightful memories together.

Hello, I’m Seongwon Park, a senior attending Branksome Hall Asia in Jeju, South Korea. It is my honor to be part of Korea_HS as a leader of the human practices team and also a member of the SDG team. Working as a leader in the human practices team allowed me to grow not only as a biologist but also as a human being. It was such a pleasure to work with people who share similar interests with the same goal. At first, I anticipated gaining knowledge only in terms of Synthetic Biology, but now I see myself learning lots of socializing and team-building skills. By spending a massive amount of time together we were able to overcome various challenges and I thought it would have been impossible without my teammates. Again, It was such an honor to participate in iGEM 2022 as a team member of Korea_HS.

Hello! I’m Hyowon (Clara) Shin, a senior at Northfield Mount Hermon School in MA, USA. I’m thrilled to take part in Korea_HS as a leader of the human practices team. Previously interested in health, biology, technology, and society, Korea_HS’s Human Practices team felt like the perfect opportunity for me to advance my knowledge while working with experts and peers to deal with real-world applications and impacts. With lab work, interviews, public engagement, and education, I’ve gained the skills of teamwork, professionalism, analysis, and most importantly, putting myself out in the world to answer my questions. I’ve learned how much work happens behind the scenes for a project to be implemented and loved helping younger students learn about our project and Synthetic Biology. I’m honored to participate in iGEM as Korea_HS’s member. Thank you!

Greetings! No, I am just kidding. My name is Seojun (Joseph) Hwang, and I am an upcoming junior at Northern Valley Old Tappan High School. I am beyond grateful to work with such a passionate team as ours and be able to pursue our interests with a common goal. I joined this project in order to see if I had an interest in the field of biology and more specifically, Synthetic Biology. Over the course of experimenting and analyzing our experiment, I found that I was in fact enjoying this field of knowledge. Not only that, other parts of IGEM like surveying the public, building business models based on our hypothesis, and sharing our knowledge with the community illustrated the fact that biology is a versatile field with myriads of possibilities. I want to again express my gratitude to my teammates and our advisers for making this project such a memorable one.

Hello, I’m Soyoon (Lynn) Kim, a sophomore attending Newton South High School in Massachusetts. It is such a pleasure to be part of Korea_HS and to compete with them in iGEM 2022. In Korea_ HS, I am one of the Wiki team leaders and part of the Collaboration team. I decided to participate in iGEM 2022 to learn new knowledge about Synthetic Biology and work and build a project with my peers. Though gaining new knowledge about Synthetic Biology was the main goal to achieve from this competition, I have learned so much that isn't academics and gained “once in a lifetime” experience by being part of this group, Korea_HS. Due to the pandemic, I was pretty timid and forgot to speak confidently, but by being part of this group and with help from my peers, in a very short amount of time, I was able to project myself in front of others. It was such a privilege to work with these people.

Hello! I am Kyunghwan (James) Roh, a sophomore attending St. Johnsbury Academy Jeju, South Korea. I am so pleased to participate in iGEM 2022, working with many passionate students interested in biology. I am in charge of the SDG and Entrepreneurship department and work as a Collaboration team member. I initially participated in iGEM expecting to learn the real-life applications of Synthetic Biology and team-working skills. And thankfully, throughout this long journey with our teammates, I’ve acquired not only profound knowledge about Synthetic Biology but also leadership skills, communication skills, and, most importantly, our amazing peers! Again, thanks to our group mates, advisors, instructors, and all the iGEM teams that helped us. It was a wonderful experience participating in iGEM 2022 as a member of the Korea_HS team!

Hello, I am Taehoon Lee, and I am a rising senior attending Valor International Scholars in South Korea. It is an honor to be part of a fantastic team and serve as an SDG team leader, collaboration team member, and wet lab team member. I am so pleased to participate in the iGEM 2022 competition, working with many passionate students all over the world. Working as a leader of the SDG team, I could positively impact societies and assist in achieving goals for SDGs. It was a great chance to collaborate with other teammates who are interested in changing the world into a better place and learned many things from our teammates while working on the projects together. It was delightful to use our projects to help and improve the situation of climate change. Though it was a demanding journey, I was always excited and inspired to learn more about Synthetic Biology and to change the world.

Hello, I’m Young-wook (Edward) Sohn, a sophomore attending Seoul International School, South Korea. It is an honor to take part in Korea HS, including receiving the responsibilities of being one of the entrepreneurship leaders and a collaboration member. To be frank, I joined the iGEM competition for the sole reason of enjoying the field of biology; I was enlightened with a surplus amount of reality and assets I must require in real life. My initial thoughts about iGEM were different from what I imagined: leaders who would devote lots of time to iGEM and members who engross themselves in the conversations during meetings. Like other members, I was fascinated by the compelling topic we worked on, digital DNA data storage, since it is a topic I never learned about. It was a new, exciting, and memorable experience meeting everyone in iGEM.

Hello, my name is Bridget (Na-Kyoung) Yun, and I am a junior attending Fox Chapel Area High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am so excited to be a participant in this year’s iGEM competition and learn about new scientific ideas that can improve the community. As someone who is interested in working in the STEM field, being a collaboration member of the Korea_HS team is an honor. Although I originally joined iGEM to gain a better understanding of Synthetic Biology; one thing that captured my interest is the social aspect of things. I am very interested in sociology and social justice in the STEM field, which is why I’m also very excited to be able to lead the inclusivity department. Despite not being able to meet my team members in person, I try to contribute to the iGEM community as much as I can, and I look forward to meeting everyone in Paris this year!

Hello, I am Erica (Seung Ah) Chung. I am in my freshman year of high school. I am attending Cheongshim International Academy, Korea. It is a great honor to join iGEM Korea HS, Human Practices Team. By joining the Human Practices Team, I could learn and share their brilliant ideas, so it was a great honor to join Human practices Team. My interests are biology, psychology, and environmental science. So I was very excited to join in on lab work, public engagement, and interviews with my teammates. I gained management process and teamwork. Previously I researched and studied the ecological characteristics of Korean frogs, so I was very interested to learn new sides of biology in iGEM. I am very excited to join the competition in Paris and at the same time, I am looking forward to meeting everyone in Paris.

Hello, I am Heeryoung (Claire) Kim, a sophomore attending Chadwick International in Incheon, South Korea. I am glad that I am able to participate as a member of the Human Practices and SDG team for iGEM 2022. Through this competition, I was able to not only expand my knowledge in Synthetic Biology but also develop my interest in the general field of science by participating in in-lab experiments and communicating with fellow students who were able to provide interesting perspectives about Synthetic Biology. As a student who was only shallowly informed about this topic, I think that this competition was one of the best ways that I could have deepened my knowledge, and I am sure that this experience will be able to positively impact my academic interest as a high school student and further. It was a privilege to work with such an amazing team.

Hello, I’m Hannah (Siyu) Kim, an uprising sophomore attending St. Catherine of Siena Academy in Wixom, Michigan. It is such a great experience for me to participate in this year’s iGEM competition as a Human Practices member. Throughout this project and research, I was able to deepen my knowledge of Synthetic Biology and improve my overall skills in management skills, organization, and communication. As a student who is interested in biology and is willing to have a profession related to it in the future, I think of this competition as a great way to advance and improve the steps/ knowledge of Synthetic Biology and learn more about the usage and improvement in biology for the upcoming years. I give gratitude to my teammates as they provide great chemistry and helpful advice. I am very excited to communicate with others also interested in the same field and hope to learn, create, and have a helpful experience through this competition.

Hello, I’m Sean (Su young) Lim, a Senior attending The Stony Brook School located in Long Island, New York. It is my honor to serve as a Human Practices, Entrepreneurship team member in Korea_HS for iGEM 2021. Through the iGEM competition, I was able to broaden my perspective as a scientist. Through applying biological knowledge to devise a solution for real-life problems and actively participating in the research/experiment process, I was able to gain extensive insight, allowing me to take a step further as a prospective biologist. With the priceless experiences I encountered in iGEM, my mere interest in biology turned into a passion. I am very grateful to my teammates, advisors, and instructors for providing me with such an opportunity in my high school years.

Hello, I’m Woo Rin Lee, a professor in the department of biological science at the University of Suwon, South Korea. I am glad to guide the 2022 iGEM project. Our students are passionate about learning science and conducting experiments. Together we work on the novel DNA storage model using human mitochondrial protein Transcription Factor A Mitochondria (TFAM) . We successfully cloned the TFAM gene from human cDNA and purified the protein using E.coli. Even though we have faced many failures and obstacles through our research experiments, we never stopped performing experiments. Failures encourage us to broaden our perspectives on the nature of a particular problem and to open our exploration to alternatives. Deep in our hearts, we inspired together with a famous quote, “Failure is but a stepping stone to success.”

Hi, I am Yugo Ro. the Primary PI in Korea_HS. It is my first-time experience for me to face the iGEM competition, so I am feeling quite interested and nervous. This year, we are going to Paris for the competition, and it will be an enormous size of competition and challengers from different countries will be coming! I am feeling a kind of complex feelings between nervousness and excitement, but I think that my team, Korea_HS will do great, because they are great workers and brilliant members! Hope to see the performance in Paris soon!

2022, iGEM coming back! Greetings, I’m Seoyun (Matthew) Lee, primary student advisor for 2022 Korea_HS and iGEM Community Ambassador to Korea, Japan, and Thailand. I’m a junior attending Daegu International School with a dedicated interest in accessible education, collaborative discourse, and responsible engineering in Synthetic Biology. It is truly a pleasure to continue a two-year-consecutive iGEM rollercoaster journey: last year, I served as the team leader and am continuing to support my team this year. I feel truly gratified to observe 2022 members constructively expanding from our 2021 efforts -- ultimately aspiring to solve global problems with local wisdom. Hopefully, my support as an iGEM alumnus could assist our members in approaching iGEM with creativity, originality, and, last but not least, excitement!

Hello :) I am Jina Bae, an advisor for the 2022 team Korea_HS. I am a current senior attending Chadwick International School located in South Korea and I have been a co-leader of the 2020 team and an advisor for both 2021 and 2022 team Korea_HS. I am passionate about biological engineering and health/global health policy. Participating in iGEM with students sharing a common passion for biology coming together from diverse backgrounds has been exciting. I hope everyone on this year’s Korea_HS team can get a similar inspiration I received from competing to further explore my passions in biology.

Hello, I am Haryeong Eo, one of the student advisors for 2022 Korea_HS. I’m a senior at Shanghai American School Puxi. Last year, as a member of the Human Practices team, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of Synthetic Biology. All the lessons I learned from Professor Lee and the memories made with other members are unforgettable moments that I will cherish forever. iGEM further inspired me to pursue a career as a biochemist. This year, I am glad that iGEM will be held offline in Paris and that members will get hands-on experience of iGEM. Specifically, this year, Korea_HS decided to tackle the entrepreneurship part. I hope my experience of launching an app to raise money will give the current members a clear-cut way to devise a plan to raise money using their product.

Hello, I’m Melissa Kim, an advisor for the 2022 Korea_HS team along with Matthew, Jina, and Haryeong. I am currently a junior at Seoul International School, and I have taken part in iGEM 2020 as the Co-Leader of the Human Practices team. As a student with a great interest in STEM, especially in bioengineering and synthetic biology, I believe that iGEM is a unique platform that exposes students to biological fields and allows students to interact with others who share similar interests internationally. As an advisor for this year, I hope that my previous experience and advice helps the current team members understand iGEM more clearly and promote their interest in biology.