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From 2012.igem.org

Internationalization Project of Synthetic Biology


Internationalization Project of Synthetic Biology (IPSB) is a project aiming at introducing synthetic biology to Palestinians, promoting it in Israel, and creating understanding between future Palestinian and Israeli biotechnology leaders. It aims to do so by bringing together gifted Jewish and Arab residents of Israel for multiple years, teaching them the principles of bioengineering and bio-entrepreneurship, and letting them take part in the internationally Genetically Engineered Machines. iGEM competition. The labs would be provided by TAU. The program’s founder is Ala’a Siam, an MIT sophomore double majoring in chemical-biological engineering and biology. His advisors include Professor Ron Weiss, David Dolev from MIST-Israel, iGEM and MEET (Middle EAST Educatio through Technology) executive members, and TAU members. iGEM currently runs three contests: college, high school, and entrepreneurship contests. IPSB’s pilot program will target high school students, and run for one year (June 2012 – June 2013). MIT students would teach the students in the summer, and TAU student instructors will take over supervision throughout the academic year. Students would work full time for three months in the summer, and meet once a week during the academic year. Later on, the program would be expanded such that students can work on their project for multiple years. Also, IPSB would revolutionize the way iGEM is running by making technical students write business plans for their own project and run for the entrepreneurship contest. This will hopefully strengthen students’ connections’ to business leaders in the area, and help commercialize synthetic biology products in the Middle East.

Brief Abstract

Internationalization Project of Synthetic Biology (IPSB) is a project aiming at introducing synthetic biology to Palestinians, promoting it in Israel, and creating understanding between future Palestinian and Israeli biotechnology leaders. It aims to do so by bringing together gifted Jewish and Arab residents of Israel for multiple years, teaching them the principles of bioengineering and bio-entrepreneurship, and letting them take part in the internationally Genetically Engineered Machines. iGEM competition. The labs would be provided by TAU.


iGEM currently runs three contests: college, high school, and entrepreneurship contests. IPSB’s pilot program will target high school students, and run for one year (June 2012 – June 2013). MIT students would teach the students in the summer, and TAU student instructors will take over supervision throughout the academic year. Students would work full time for three months in the summer, and meet once a week during the academic year. Later on, the program would be expanded such that students can work on their project for multiple years. Also, IPSB would revolutionize the way iGEM is running by making technical students write business plans for their own project and run for the entrepreneurship contest. This will hopefully strengthen students’ connections’ to business leaders in the area, and help commercialize synthetic biology products in the Middle East.


Description of Collaboration


MIT has a similar program running in collaboration with the Hebrew University called the Middle East Education through Technology (MEET). MEET brings gifted Palestinian and Israeli high school students together for three years, and teaches them computer science and entrepreneurship. The goal of the project is to create a network of Arab and Israeli leaders who can together advance the computer science industry in the region. MEET believes that the best way to create mutual understanding among Palestinians and Israelis is by making them interact with each other over a three-year span and work together on big projects. MEET is currently a huge success and is working on starting new branches in the area. The logistics of the program include sending MIT students to Jerusalem for a month in the summer, during which they teach intense courses to the high school students. Over the academic year, the high school students meet once every week to be taught by Hebrew University members. The program covers transportation and food expenses for MIT instructors and the high school students.

Our project builds on the philosophy of MEET, but focuses on biotechnology as opposed to computer science. Our program aims to introduce synthetic biology as a growing technology field to Palestinians, and to promote Israeli interest in developing their biotechnology hub in Tel Aviv. Our program is different in MEET in that the students will run for an international contest together, which we hope will make bond together more strongly than they would working on an academic project.


Desired Social Impact


1. Introduce synthetic biology to developing nations: In a world where biotechnology applications are of increasing significance, it is important to allow developing nations to keep up with the growing technology by introducing essential techniques to young minds. IPSB will hopefully provide funding for equipment, materials, and lab space where necessary.

2. Present biotechnology as a promising field to youth in developed nations: Many countries, like European countries and Israel, are becoming hubs of biotechnology research and entrepreneurship. Yet, biotechnology there is not as celebrated as in the US, and still loses great minds to other fields of technology. IPSB will potentially increase the number of youth considering biological manipulation as a career, thus providing entrepreneurial enthusiasm and research labor in such nations.

3. Create synthetic biology networks in regions of application: IPSB will not only have classroom and lab components for synthetic biology, but also team building exercises to strengthen the bonds of team members. Most importantly it will focus on alumni events, to ensure that the relations are sustained beyond iGEM and the program.

4. Create peace and mutual understanding between peoples of conflicting nations: IPSB will brig students from conflicting together and teach them the common languages of reasoning and planning. By brining young minds together for several years, and making them work together on one project, mutual and sustainable understanding will be established between these.

5. Accelerate the global development of synthetic biology: IPSB will offer high quality education and direct interactions with business and policy leaders. This will help technical, political, and entrepreneurial establishment of synthetic biology to accelerate. Working on projects for multiple years will hopefully raise the complexity of the systems dealt with.

Theory of Change IPSB believes that the best way to introduce synthetic biology internationally is by hands-on practice. By actually engineering cells, students worldwide will see the potentials of this exciting field, get over the barrier that bioengineering is unrealistic or hard, and gain necessary foundations to build their understanding of the field. By providing lab equipment and material, IPSB will help solve the issue of costliness of bioengineering. This is why we aim to create IPSB rather than work on incorporating synthetic biology principles in national curricula. A main concept of IPSB is creating mutual understanding and networks of bioengineers in areas of conflict. However, unlike specialized peace projects, IPSB does not aim to accomplish that by letting students discuss political topics explicitly. Instead, IPSB believes that the best way to reach this goal is through social activities and teamwork on one project. IPSB believes that by working together, students will spontaneously see that racial, religious, and gender differences are meaningless. IPSB believes that meeting for one summer and working on a project by itself may not be sufficient to build sustainable relationships between students of conflicting countries. This is why the program will hopefully span multiple years, and why IPSB is strongly concerned about networking and post-graduation events. IPSB also believes in interdisciplinary success. In other words, in order to firmly establish synthetic biology as a research and commercial field, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and engineers need to work together. This is why IPSB will create teams working together on the technical and social science aspects of synthetic biology. While business planners and engineers will participate in different branches of iGEM, IPSB aims to let planners make connections and create business plans to commercialize and apply the products of the engineers. The engineers, thus, will be taught how to pick projects that are of strong applied relevance, and how to scale up their products. Program Design and Development -Initial Project for Summer 2013 The goal of the program’s first summer would be introducing iGEM, synthetic biology and our theory of change. In other words, it will aim to familiarize the Tel-Aviv University (TAU) staff with our project. Also, it will help us envision how the program will develop in the future. Most importantly, due to our limited resources, it should generate results and spread our idea in the region as fast and with as little costs as possible. Thus, Summer 2013 will only see one group of high school students joining the pre-college iGEM contest. This will enable us to show our real project in little time and with little costs, which will hopefully make IPSB more popular, giving it a strong start. The deadline for student applications will be set in April, and the project starts in June. The number of students admitted will be based on how much resources we have, but should not be less than 10. The number of Palestinian students should equal the number of Israeli students. The program will run for one year, from one summer to the other (The results of the high school contest are announced in June every year). The program would run in this manner: MIT students will travel to Tel Aviv in the summer and teach students the summer coursework. Throughout the academic year, as students continue developing their project, TAU members will take over the supervision role. It is worthy to note that while IPSB will eventually accept students regardless of their biological and engineering backgrounds, Summer 2013 will favor students with these backgrounds in order to spend as little time and resources on preparation as possible. -Expansion of the Project As our resources and reputation grow, the high school program will be developed such that students would be able to work on their project for two years each. This will enhance the quality of the undergraduates’ work, giving them enough time to learn and work to produce more complex feats. High school students will be given the chance to choose whatever technical aspect of synthetic biology they deem interesting, be it pure constructions of systems based on older mechanisms or working on the fundamentals of new circuit construction techniques. This will probably help them construct systems that are of great scientific and industrial significance, and will raise the standards of iGEM worldwide. A college program will be established later on, and the two programs will not be completely independent. For instance, undergraduates may be allowed to build upon what alumni of high school students have constructed, and vise versa. This will give the students the ability to develop “hacking skills,” or building upon projects started by others. It will also allow for one team to carry out fundamental technique projects and the other to apply into a system, or to bring different applied projects together to build a more complex one. IPSB aims to revolutionize the way iGEM technical and business contests are run. Currently, they are run independently, with team running for one or the other. We aim to instill to introduce an entrepreneurship component into the curriculum. By the contest students, students will not only have developed a technical product, but also business plans for commercializing that product. They would run for both the technical and entrepreneurship. IPSB believes that this the right of bringing synthetic biology into the market. Venture capitalists may not be interested in business plans without products, or products without business plans. IPSB hopes to make iGEM more of an incubator than just a contest. The program will not be independent of the outer synthetic biology world. Students will be given the chance to cooperate with industry professional, building products suggested by these companies, and to create marketing and financial plans for outer projects. However, for the final iGEM products, the teams will be forced to work on their own designs. reason behind that is to develop independent and interdisciplinary thinking skills among IPSB students, and to bring new ideas into the scientific and business realms. Curriculum Development for High School Project -Summer and Year 1: Principles of synthetic biology, circuit planning, and registry of biological parts. Introduction to relevant chemical and electrical engineering principles. Reviewing and introducing new lab techniques. Construction of simple biological circuits. Tests and homework. Presentation and literature review skills. Lectures, labs, and guests from academia and industry. -Summer and Year 2: Introduction to principles of entrepreneurship by taking into account costs and applicability. Examples from previous contests. Brainstorming for project. Journal clubs about relevant papers. Working on the actual iGEM project. -Summer 3: iGEM project. Extracurricular and Leadership Development Leadership will be developed through lectures, mixers, and mini-contests. The high school program, may involve contests for marketing products of biotechnology start-ups and titans, and mixer events. The undergraduate program will feature many academia leaders. There will be much focus in the programs on presenting new ideas and using professional language. There will also be fun activities to enhance the bonding between team members. However, IPSB believes that spontaneously, people of conflicting nations will befriend each other. Thus, the program will be void of political discussion events outside the context of technology and entrepreneurship policies. In fact, in programs bringing together students of conflicting countries, only English will be allowed to be spoken. Logistics - Criteria for Selecting Instructors Instructors are expected to have strong backgrounds in the material they are teaching. Instructors will be selected such that they have different forms of experiences, including internships, research, contests, and start-ups. The reason behind this is that IPSB aims to show its students that experience can be gained through different techniques, and that working with others of different experience can lead to tackling all aspects of a project. There are two different kinds of instructors: summer and yearlong instructors. Summer instructors will be university students from MIT and other leading US institutions. The college bodies will interview instructors. The reason behind this is to make sure that these instructors have the required teaching and speaking skills. Entrepreneurship instructors are expected to have many biotech connections. Undergraduate instructors are expected to high strong research experience, and will most likely be postdocs and graduate students. High school instructors are expected to have striking extracurricular pursuits. This will make the program enriching and interesting for high school students. Yearlong instructors will be faculty members, students, and members of local institutions. IPSB will make sure that the number of faculty members from either nations of the conflicting two is equal to other, e.g. the number of Palestinian instructors equals the number of Israeli ones. -Instructor Housing and Transportation Summer instructors will be provided with all the funding needed for their travel and accommodation. If possible, they will be allowed to stay where the students are staying, be that on TAU campus or in a hotel. Yearlong instructors will be provided with transportation. Instructors will not be paid for teaching IPSB students. -Criteria for Selecting Students Initially, the program will look mainly for experience in applied biology lab techniques. The reason is that IPSB, before it establishes the multiple year programs, would like to decrease costs while building reputation and publicizing synthetic biology. The program will start as a one year program allowing experienced undergraduate students to design their own new organism. As the program grows, students will be admitted regardless of their biology background. They will be accepted according to three tests and two letters of recommendation. The tests will include an IQ test, a teamwork and communication test, and an interview. Students will not be charged for joining the program, and will be provided with meals. -Students Housing and Transportation As students meet once a week in the yearlong phase, transportation will be provided to all the students. In the summer, transportation will be provided to students who live near the TAU, whereas students from other cities will be provided with housing on the TAU campus or in a nearby hotel. Students from other cities will be provided with transportation on weekends to their homes and on the beginning of weekdays to TAU. Funding We hope to raise funds from biotechnology and investment companies in the US, Israel, and Arab countries. We also hope to raise funds through contests and grants. Finally, we hope that universities in the Middle East and the US will support us financially. After the initial stages, we hope the project will keep on receiving financial support from other institutions but also sustaining independent funding. We have already started filling grants, and registering for international development contests.