iGEM Toulouse 2020 team, vice-world champion!

The iGEMINI project defended by the iGEM Toulouse INSA-UPS 2020 team ranked second on the podium of the international iGEM competition. This exceptional result allows a French team to reach the podium for the fourth time in 17 editions, and for the first time for a Toulouse team in 7 consecutive participations!

Toulouse INSA-UPS 2020 team, form of eight students from INSA Toulouse and the University Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier and supervised by researchers and teacher-researchers from TBI (Toulouse Biotechnology Institute) and CBI (Centre for Integrative Biology) in Toulouse, benefited from the financial and technical support of around ten sponsors, including TWB.

This year, iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) synthetic biology competition, initially organised by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), brought together 250 teams of biology students from all over the world who have worked on developing an innovative biological system that responded to a current problem. The competition took place online from 13 to 22 November 2020.

iGEMINI project

The aim of the Toulouse team’s project, called iGEMINI, was to answer the following question: how can we produce fresh food supplements for astronauts in space? The team designed a system to produce nutritious yeast enriched with Provitamin A and intended to be ingested by astronauts as a dietary supplement to compensate for the nutritional loss of vitamins during long space trips. This innovative, quasi-autonomous system uses resources little used in the spacecraft. Users will be able to choose the taste of their yeast according to their preferences thanks to a light regulation system.

Results of the competition

The Toulouse team won the silver medal on the “Undergraduate” podium (125 projects competed in this group) and was nominated in 7 categories: best presentation, best wiki,  best “Food and Nutrition” project, best educational engagement, best entrepreneurship, best sustainable development and best poster, which was awarded. The students from Toulouse finally won a gold medal in the competition which rewards the most complete projects.

More informations & Press Release from INSA Toulouse (in French)