In November 2021, a dynamic group of ten interdisciplinary students represented Ohio State at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. The iGEM Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of synthetic biology, education, and competition—and the development of an open community and collaboration. Ohio State’s team is composed of first-year through senior students who have majors ranging from chemical engineering to neuroscience. The 2021 OSU iGEM team worked together for several months developing a project that utilizes synthetic biology to address real-world issues.
Last year, their project sought to treat the devastating and all-too-common condition known as sepsis.
Sepsis is a life-threatening complication where the body has a hyper-immune response, a cytokine storm, to an infection that can cause organ failure and, ultimately, death. In 2018 alone, sepsis killed at least 250,000 Americans.
How did they decide on sepsis? For the iGEM team, the devastation of sepsis is far from theoretical. Senior Lizzie Chung’s father directly faced the fear and pain caused by sepsis on multiple occasions. Lizzie actually began her full-time college career at the age of 14 because, in addition to her intellectual brilliance, Lizzie has a huge heart. After a battle with sepsis that left her father incredibly weak while Lizzie was in seventh grade, the Home Health Aide agency that was providing care for her father no longer could because he needed 24/7 care. College allowed Lizzie to have a more flexible schedule to take care of her dad when her other family members were not available.
Each time, the doctors would tell Lizzie and her family how risky the treatments for sepsis were. If you treat sepsis with antibiotics, specifically sepsis induced by gram negative bacteria, the antibiotics can make things worse: the bacteria can burst and release a dangerous endotoxin called Lipid A. The release of Lipid A triggers the immune system even more and can actually worsen the sepsis and the immune response that damages the body.
This personal connection to their problem made the iGEM team’s drive to find a solution all the more powerful. So, they started brainstorming—Lizzie said it wasn’t long before they had almost 80 messages in their brainstorming Slack channel. They started discussing anti-Lipid A proteins, and then phage therapy. Bringing together their different ideas, the team decided to create a novel therapy for the treatment of sepsis.
The iGEM team designed the Lipid-A Phighter, a bacteriophage that will infect the bacteria that cause sepsis in patients and inject DNA that will code for the production of anti-Lipid A proteins. The proteins will then bind to Lipid A in the bacterial cell wall to make Lipid A less immunogenic and, therefore, prevent a harmful immune overreaction. You can dive into their project on their team wiki, as well as their video presentation!
iGEM also has a Human Practice component that is focused on education and ensuring that the team’s project is safe and ethical. The 2021 iGEM team completed a number of exciting projects to satisfy this component, including:
- Drafting a regulation proposal advocating for regulations that allow phage therapy as a treatment for sepsis. As part of this effort, the team spoke with Professor Efthimios Parasidis, a nationally-recognized expert on health law and bioethics.
- Authoring and illustrating a children’s book in collaboration with the iGEM team from the University of Rochester called A Trip to the Hospital: Randall’s Lesson on Sepsis that seeks to educate children about sepsis. Their book is available on Amazon and Kindle!
- Helping lead a robotics and biology summer camp for elementary school students where the students engaged in exciting scientific activities like isolating strawberry DNA, using a microbial fuel cell, building their own centrifuges, transforming bacteria, and a disinfectant lab!
The iGEM competition encourages collaboration between teams across the world. The 2021 iGEM team hosted a global brainstorming session over Zoom that was attended by 23 teams from 8 different countries. They also collaborated with a team from Mexico (FCB–School of Biological Sciences) to create legislation proposals aimed at creating more equal opportunities for implementing synthetic biology products in both Mexico and the United States. Throughout the competition, they also worked with teams from the University of Warwick, Michigan State, Wright State, and William & Mary.
Several hundred teams from around the world usually fly to Boston each year to present their research and compete for prizes at the annual Giant Jamboree. However, like so many other events last year, the competition was moved to a hybrid format with an in-person and online component. The team presented their project virtually for the international competition and flew down to Florida for a regional Meetup.
The team’s hard work, dedication, and scientific ingenuity were rewarded with a Gold medal!
The 2021 OSU iGEM team consisted of Ankit Annapareddy, Ryan Burrows, Lizzie Chung, Lindsay Drumm, Satvik Kethireddy, Saranya Lamba, Joey Lo, Nate Meyer, Lindsey Shimoda, and Yingyi Zhu. The team was advised by Erin Connors, Allison Howell, Jacob Riina, and Andrew Schwieters, and directed by Anice Sabag-Daigle, Jerry Lio, and Brian Ahmer in the Department of Microbial Infection and Immunity. The team was sponsored by the College of Medicine and the Infectious Diseases Institute.
The iGEM team is already preparing for the 2022 competition that is to be held in Paris, France! Their project covers many disciplines outside of synthetic biology including software development, media creation, mathematical modeling, and entrepreneurship. In addition, everyone explores the social and environmental impacts of synthetic biology in their community, as well as developing educational or community outreach programs. This is truly an interdisciplinary effort, therefore students with a variety of backgrounds are needed. If you are a student that is interested in participating, or a faculty member that would like to help, please contact the team through email at igem.osu@gmail.com or on Instagram (@igem_osu).