Today, ASBC hosted Chia Jin Ngee, Senior Commercial and Technical Specialist from our sponsor Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) for a special webinar! Jin Ngee explained how IDT can support synthetic biology teams in their quest to develop novel genetically engineered machines. As a leader in DNA and RNA synthesis, IDT creates around 133 million bases per month!
Jin Ngee has been working in the oligo synthesis industry since 1991, which is certainly longer than most of our participants (and maybe some mentors & organisers) have been alive! So we were very lucky to provide the opportunity for students and mentors of ASBC teams across Australia to learn about IDT's oligo manufacturing process based on optimised phosphoramidite chemistry. It was also interesting to hear about sustainability initiatives at IDT & their commitment to enabling life sciences breakthroughs.
IDT has contributed to numerous educational initiatives like the Australasian Synthetic Biology competition. By taking a modular approach to genetic engineering, synthetic biology enables a systems based approach to design & modify biological pathways. As the workhorse of synthetic biology, custom gene fragments will form the building block of each team's project.
Jia Ngee also deconstructed the Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle which is an iterative approach to bioengineering embedded within the DNA of the Australasian Synthetic Biology Competition. To enable teams to translate their ideas from lab notebooks to the bench, Jia Ngee shared several IDT products including oPools, gBlocks, eBlocks and gBlocks HiFi.
We are looking forward to teams entering the first phase of this cycle, and sharing their synbio ideas at our Design Showcase in July!