Back in 2009, Unicamp was the first Brazilian university to participate in the competition. The first Brazilian iGEM team was born from a highly productive synthetic biology group from our campus and created the “Microguards” project.
The project was awarded a gold medal and was pivotal in the structuring of a synthetic biology nucleus within the university, besides serving as an example of the potential of national research institutions from Brazil, inspiring other Brazilian universities to compete in the coming years.
Unicamp’s second participation happened in 2011 with a collaboration with the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne (EMSE), granting the second gold medal for our university.
In spite of the success of Unicamp’s both teams, it didn’t send any other team since its last participation. Synthetic biology has always been present in Unicamp’s research groups and after a gap of 11 years, we are back in business!
With a project focused on the development of a UV-resistant yeast that could be used in the sugar industry. The idea was that sterilization of fermentation vats could be done with ultraviolet radiation, replacing the large volumes of antibiotics typically used for this purpose.
Thus, besides offering a solution for the industry, we would combat one of the sources of bacteria resistant to a wide range of antibiotics.Unfortunately, because of the world’s pandemic covid-19, we had to give up our funds to participate in the competition so that the money would go towards fighting the progress of the pandemic.
During this period, we remained active by collaborating on the synthesis of a reverse transcriptase to be used in covid-19 diagnostic tests.
The building of our current team started in 2019, with a project focused in reverse transcriptase synthesis. Unfortunately, because of the world’s pandemic covid-19 we were unable to collect funding to participate and the iGEM dream was postponed.
In august of 2021 a group of students from the Synthetic Biology Laboratory (LaBS) from the Biology Institute of Unicamp, supervised by Professor Elizabeth Bilsland, got together and decided to create an iGEM team to participate in 2022.
At first, the team was formed exclusively by biology students, but after a selective process, the team gained new members from other domain areas, like Chemistry, Engineering and Biochemistry. We also partnered with the BioPolmat group at Araraquara (UNIARA) and with the startups BioSmart Nanotechnology and HB Biotec.
Since the beginning, we were motivated with an environmental track and wanted to work on something related to finding a purpose and a destiny to residues and garbage disposal.
We started visiting landfills and recycling posts from our cities to address the problem with the people that have deal with this problem on a daily basis.
We also got in contact with people from the other side of the story, researchers that are trying to find sustainable solutions to residue disposal.
A crucial visit in the development of our project was when we met Dr. Hernane Barud, a specialist in bacterial cellulose (BC) production. Dr. Barud and his team works with the innovative process of producing BC using agroindustrial residues, developed with the multinational company JBT.
Considering that Brazil generates over 290 million tons of agroindustrial waste per year, we can reduce these residue disposal environmental impact and can grow a bacteria that produces cellulose for medical applications.
In our team’s journey it is also important to emphasize our university’s support. We wouldn’t be able to participate in this year if it wasn’t for their sponsorship and are extremely grateful for that.