The Aalto-Helsinki 2023 is a multidisciplinary and international team consisting of 10 students from the University of Helsinki and Aalto University. We are excited to participate in the world's largest synthetic biology competition iGEM with our diverse team with background in various fields of biosciences and technology. Our aim is to leverage our multidisciplinary background to develop an innovative and impactful synthetic biology project that advances scientific research and benefits society.

To help us in this, we also have our advisory team which consists of Principal Investigators Heli Viskari, Aalto University lecturer, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems, and Markus Linder, Aalto University professor of Biomolecular materials. Additionally, we have supporting project advisors Dr. Ville Paavilainen, Institute of Biotechnology, and Sesilja Aranko, staff scientist at the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems, Aalto University.

Apart from this website, you can follow our journey on our Instagram and Facebook.

Plastic pollution and food scarcity are major global challenges. Our project aims to provide a sustainable solution to address these issues by developing a proof-of-concept approach for converting polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into proteins.

PETases are promising biocatalysts for the development of biological PET degradation. Our project aims to use these enzymes along with MHETase to create a sustainable solution to plastic waste management and protein production.

In the first stage of our project, the aim is to enzymatically depolymerize PET into monomers that could be fed to microbes. In the second stage, the goal is to genetically engineer a strain that can utilize the monomers to produce proteins or other value-added molecules.

More details of our project will be published throughout the year, stay tuned for more!

International Genetically Engineered Machine iGEM is an international synthetic biology competition originating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA. The iGEM competition challenges students to design and implement a project within a short time frame using innovation, design, experimental work and modelling applications.

The broader purpose of our project is to promote and increase the understanding of synthetic biology in Finland and around the world. Synthetic biology is a field of science and technology that combines biology with engineering principles. The basic principle is to design new genes, genetic devices, metabolic routes and entire organisms to create novel products and production pathways. Standardization is also a key component of this process, which is why one goal of the iGEM competition is to maintain the "BioBrick part registry" - a library of standardized genetic parts.

Synthetic biology has the potential to provide valuable solutions to many of today's problems. However, media and the general public still sometimes see genetically modified organisms rather as a threat than an opportunity. We work responsibly and take safety and ethics carefully into account in our project design and laboratory work. We conduct research that is safe for us and the environment.