Applications open for the latest round of the Wellcome Trust iGEM scheme
24 October 2011
An annual competition, iGEM encourages teams of undergraduate students to develop innovative projects based around biological building bricks, or 'biobricks', in the same way that engineering students might develop a robot using standardised parts.
Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the beginning of the summer and work over the summer break, using these parts and new parts of their own design to build biological systems and operate them in living cells. Previous projects in the competition have included a biosensor to detect arsenic in water supplies, bacteria that take photographs and bacteria that smell of bananas.
The Wellcome Trust is offering teams of students stipends to enable them to enter iGEM 2012. The aim of the stipend is to provide promising undergraduates with hands-on experience of synthetic biology during their summer vacation and encourage the students to consider a career in interdisciplinary research.
The Wellcome Trust is inviting applications with relevance to biomedical science from students from a broad range of disciplines (including science, mathematics, dentistry, medicine and veterinary science), as well as encouraging the involvement of students from social or ethical sciences.
Applications are now invited. Stipends are available for a maximum of ten students per team, and a stipend of up to £190 per week per student for ten weeks will be provided. Research expenses are not provided.
Further information, including details of how to apply, can be found on the iGEM page of the Wellcome Trust website.
