June 2022: Edmond J. Safra Center supports TAU iGEM team
A TAU team, led by Prof. Tamir Tuller, Edmond J. Safra member (Engineering), will participate in the iGEM competition for the fourth time.
The International Genetically Engineered Machine (IGEM) competition is a worldwide synthetic biology competition. Hundreds of groups from around the world participate and present novel ideas and solutions for key challenges in synthetic biology.
This year, a TAU team led by Prof. Tamir Tuller, Edmond J. Safra member (Engineering), will participate in the competition for the fourth time. The team includes eleven excellent students from Engineering, Biology, Chemistry and Bioinformatics.
This year’s project - Triggate - aims to create an automatic synthetic biology tool, based on computational models and algorithms, to help designing an mRNA molecule, such that it would be differentially expressed only in a desired tissue or cell type. This would be achieved by programming the secondary structure of the mRNA molecule to sense and respond to a specific trigger molecule (or molecules), and allow for translation only in its presence. This technology has great potential in the fields of mRNA therapy and personalized medicine; it can specifically help in developing novel vaccines and cancer therapies. The research is based on the combination of tools from various disciplines such as synthetic biology, bioinformatics, computer science, machine learning, and engineering.
The Edmond J. Safra Center is one of the iGEM TAU team's supporters.
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