Biology team wins prize for synthetic palm oil

A team from Manchester won a prize at an world renowned genetic engineering compeition in Boston for creating a synthetic alternative to palm oil.

The students won the ‘Best Human Practices’ prize after competing with 73 other teams from around the world at the international Genetically Engineered (iGEM) World Championships this month.

Team member and final year Developmental Biology student Rob Harrison said, “We were absolutely ecstatic to have won! After working so hard all summer – and technically, all year given all the work that went in to planning the project – it felt great to have recognition for what we’ve achieved.”

The team used a modified version of the E.coli bacteria to create a synthetic version of palm oil.

Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world and the demand for the product is ever-growing.  Deforestation is often a consequence of palm-oil plantations.  The iGEM team’s project could lead to significant developments for environmental protection if taken further.

The yearly iGEM competition is targeted at undergraduate students.  The aim is for teams to design and create their own parts to build a biological system and then operate it in living cells.

The team presented the project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT) and also talked about their achievement in the Faculty of Life Sciences podcast.

Harrison said, “We’d definitely recommend taking part in a competition like this in the future. Hopefully there will be a team for the next competition if funding is sorted. We’ll be looking for people from a range of academic backgrounds: not just natural scientists but also computer scientists, sociologists, graphic designers. We had an economist on the team this year!”

Prior to the Championships, the students have also held workshops with 200 children as part of the University of Manchester’s Science Stars Day.