UCSF iGEM Program

00:00:13.18 WL: At MIT, in, I think, probably around 2004,
00:00:18.11 as part of this emerging field of synthetic biology,
00:00:22.05 there was a group there that included Tom Knight, and Randy Ripperger and Drew Endy,
00:00:28.13 where they decided to have a little class
00:00:32.09 at MIT that was about actually trying to,
00:00:36.18 instead of using electronic parts, using molecular parts
00:00:40.23 from living systems and asking the students whether they could use these
00:00:46.21 as components to build biological systems,
00:00:50.03 living cellular systems, that could carry out new, interesting functions.
00:00:54.21 So, it started out as this very small class,
00:00:57.13 with maybe about 15 people.
00:00:59.13 But then in the coming years, they decided to invite a few different
00:01:05.29 schools, different universities to participate in this,
00:01:08.27 and maybe four or five would get together
00:01:11.10 in the summer in this jamboree and they would talk about the work that they did,
00:01:15.04 and people would vote on it and you would get prizes,
00:01:18.19 and this actually grew and grew, and now, today,
00:01:23.18 iGEM, I think, has probably about 200 schools participating in it.
00:01:28.23 And now there are actually regional competitions in each of the continents,
00:01:32.26 and then one big jamboree at MIT in November.
00:01:37.06 So, where we come in is that here at UCSF, we don't have undergraduates,
00:01:44.23 and most of this was designed to be a competition for undergraduate students
00:01:48.09 and so I spent a little time thinking about what would be a good solution,
00:01:53.02 how could we actually put together a team that would be able to actually compete
00:01:59.10 with the college students, and so one idea that occurred to me was
00:02:04.26 could we find a pool of really talented high school students, sort of later, seniors and so forth,
00:02:11.25 and I gave George a call and left a message.
00:02:15.16 And I think, you know, he can tell you what happened after that.
00:02:19.06 GC: He proposed a collaboration between my students
00:02:22.16 and UCSF and having done research for 15 years prior to teaching,
00:02:27.21 I quickly recognized what they were asking for was a graduate level type of work.
00:02:34.01 But we've never been afraid to take a risk,
00:02:36.13 and if Wendell and his laboratory was willing to take a risk on a bunch of high-school students
00:02:41.07 doing research in his lab, we were very happy to go for it.
00:02:45.06 WL: So, one of the things I was worried about, too,
00:02:46.26 was that the students would be kind of a burden to the people in my lab,
00:02:51.27 and other graduate students and postdocs at UCSF.
00:02:55.02 That they'd really have to hold their hands the whole time.
00:02:58.16 But, the, I think what's really interesting is that
00:03:03.06 these, the team of students are so well prepared already
00:03:07.16 from George's class, from two years of working of taking the biotechnology courses,
00:03:12.11 that there really isn't that much hand holding,
00:03:15.20 as well as the fact that because they're working as a team,
00:03:19.05 together, they can consult with one another
00:03:22.19 and they can learn from one another,
00:03:25.13 and that's another really unique thing, compared to say, just a normal sort of internship,
00:03:30.10 where you have one student working, you know, thrown in a lab,
00:03:33.21 and they oftentimes, I know I've gone through this when I began working,
00:03:37.21 you don't know what you're doing, you're afraid to ask,
00:03:40.10 but you're much more willing to ask your peers,
00:03:43.10 the other students on the iGEM team.
00:03:45.01 GC: Wendell and his laboratory found that our students,
00:03:49.03 what they might have lacked in experience, they gained in imagination,
00:03:55.10 they were willing to propose research ideas that might not have occurred
00:04:00.09 to us, we might have thought that they were a little naive,
00:04:04.06 or too difficult to reach,
00:04:06.11 but in that first year, one of our students threw out the idea of creating a synthetic organelle,
00:04:12.05 and at first, we looked at each other, like, oh that's something people have wanted to do for years,
00:04:17.09 and then we said, well, wait a minute,
00:04:19.06 let's look into whether this can be done,
00:04:21.23 and two and a half months later, we made significant progress in that project,
00:04:28.25 and we all flew to MIT, very hopeful, and were delighted to find
00:04:34.14 that we actually placed in the top 6 finalists of the competition,
00:04:38.08 which created a huge stir over there at the iGEM competition.
00:04:43.00 After our presentation, we were flooded with the undergrads from all over the world
00:04:48.01 coming to our poster, incredulous, actually,
00:04:51.08 that a bunch of high school students could perform at such a high level.
00:04:55.21 It should be said here, that they don't hold their hands too much at UC.
00:05:00.19 In Wendell's lab, they insisted the kids come up with the ideas themselves,
00:05:04.04 read primary citations, and do the background research to come up with their own idea.
00:05:10.01 It's helped, actually, engender enthusiasm for more biotechnology at Lincoln,
00:05:14.23 everybody wants to get on the iGEM team,
00:05:17.05 everybody wants to get into the biotech class,
00:05:19.11 we have them filled to the maximum, 5 classes a day,
00:05:22.17 WL: there's also been a growth in the number of biotechnology programs
00:05:25.28 throughout the San Francisco Unified School District,
00:05:30.00 many other high schools now have started programs like this,
00:05:33.15 in part inspired by what the Lincoln team showed that they could do.
00:05:39.16 And, you know, one thing that I always find is really interesting is
00:05:42.20 what's really nice about the field of biotechnology,
00:05:47.20 and of synthetic biology, where you're really asking,
00:05:50.01 not, kind of, some obscure, academic question about how some biological system works,
00:05:55.16 but you're really trying to think about what problem could we solve,
00:05:59.00 how can we solve a problem in medicine or a problem in bioenergy,
00:06:03.23 that the students, even at this very young age,
00:06:06.15 are able to really understand the motivation,
00:06:10.26 and therefore, they invest a lot more, they're not just handed the protocol or a script,
00:06:16.08 and here, you know, be a little robot, do these experiments,
00:06:19.17 pipette this into this, they're really thinking about what the reason is for doing this,
00:06:25.24 and therefore, they're much more motivated.
00:06:27.22 GC: Virtually all of the 6 teams worth students are now either in graduate school,
00:06:33.07 in science, or working for industry.
00:06:37.02 Several of them stay locally, to go to a local college,
00:06:40.18 so they can continue working in Wendell's laboratory
00:06:43.03 over the course of the year, so the amount of experience they're getting
00:06:46.21 by the time they get their undergraduate degree
00:06:48.28 is far, far beyond what most undergraduates can get.
00:06:53.27 I'd also say we had an impact nationally,
00:06:56.27 in that we get calls from all over the country now
00:07:00.07 from other schools that are interested in this type of collaboration.
00:07:03.21 And, so much so, that iGEM has actually started an high school division now,
00:07:09.14 where there's a high school competition for just high school students,
00:07:12.22 but of course, we'd prefer to continue competing with the undergrads.
00:07:16.05 WL: I think we can learn a lot in our practice of high-level research at universities,
00:07:23.05 it's been extraordinarily enriching for me
00:07:25.20 and for the people in my lab, and inspired them to think about different types of problems,
00:07:30.16 to think in different ways,
00:07:31.28 and so, I think, really, we've worked together and built an ecosystem
00:07:37.20 that really is, has a lot of momentum,
00:07:41.23 and is a model for a lot of what we'll see in the future.
00:07:46.29 I decided to join because I thought it was a really cool opportunity
00:07:55.06 to get experience in the field of biotechnology in general.
00:07:58.26 My biotech teacher told me about it,
00:08:02.09 and I just really wanted to try out research.
00:08:04.22 One of the reasons why I like iGEM was because it's actually research experience,
00:08:10.28 and you're working with other students around your age.
00:08:14.12 Well, when I first heard about the iGEM team,
00:08:16.19 I heard it was about synthetic biology,
00:08:19.17 and since freshman year of high school,
00:08:21.27 I always loved biology. So, I decided why not do something in biology this summer?
00:08:25.28 I thought it would be a good opportunity to get into the field,
00:08:33.22 to have experience and stuff,
00:08:35.08 and I thought it would be fun to just be in a lab.
00:08:40.25 So, I wanted to do iGEM again for the summer because
00:08:47.11 I thought it would be nice to, I guess help out,
00:08:50.01 because I think it was a really good experience the first time
00:08:52.27 and I wanted to help new students.
00:08:55.02 My expectations, I mean, I don't expect everything to go perfectly well
00:09:03.18 because things always go wrong, but I think we'll work together well enough
00:09:08.27 where it'll run smoothly.
00:09:10.27 I don't really have an expectation, I'm just going to see how it goes
00:09:14.15 and I think I'll be pretty happy with it either way.
00:09:16.29 I'm actually just excited about working with everybody else
00:09:20.12 because I've known them for awhile and it's going to be fun
00:09:24.20 just working with them in a lab
00:09:26.13 and figuring out what to do for our project
00:09:29.07 and how it's going to work.
00:09:30.24 This summer, I just really hope to learn about
00:09:35.12 what kind of work it takes to kind of do the research,
00:09:40.17 to kind of create our own project
00:09:44.08 versus only having skills like, taught to you, and not the knowledge part of it.
00:09:50.16 I'm excited to get results,
00:09:52.06 I want to see what we thought we'd get
00:09:54.16 and what we have to present to other people.
00:09:56.19 I honestly expect a lot of mistakes
00:10:00.00 but I think it's going to be a lot of fun
00:10:02.25 and enjoyable and it's going to be serious
00:10:06.11 because we're with all these graduate students and postdocs and everything, so,
00:10:11.20 it'll be fun, though.
00:10:13.09 I guess I'm really looking forward to competing against all the other iGEM teams
00:10:22.07 with some hookups in the biotech field.
00:10:24.17 I don't know, I'm really, I'm excited, but I'm also kind of nervous,
00:10:29.00 like, because everyone we're competing against,
00:10:31.28 lot of college students.
00:10:34.08 For the competition, I think we know we're going to get gold.
00:10:38.07 When something actually worked.
00:10:46.03 Like, MyoEBE made green, that made my day.
00:10:49.03 Probably the first time we got a PCR to work.
00:10:53.17 I really just, like, we just ran towards each other, like "yes!!!!"
00:10:57.01 I think it was working with my lab group, it's like getting to know different people,
00:11:02.28 from different schools and people that are also in the same skill level as me.
00:11:09.01 I like being together with all the teammates.
00:11:13.03 I think they are so kind and lovely.
00:11:16.16 What I enjoyed most about iGEM was learning about everything really.
00:11:21.16 Well, I learned that most of science is failure,
00:11:28.11 which makes the things that actually work out even cooler,
00:11:31.29 and it makes you appreciate the things that have worked out in science so far
00:11:35.25 a lot more.
00:11:37.07 I learned working in a group, it's difficult, but it's also a great experience.
00:11:47.14 I feel like I've learned a lot of things that I can use later on in life.
00:11:50.19 It's taught me kind of how working in a lab is, it's taught me how to work with a team
00:11:59.07 that has a lot of different aspects, that, like, how to communicate.
00:12:04.15 Communication is so important.
00:12:05.28 I learned to do things step by step,
00:12:09.23 and do not worry so much.
00:12:13.04 Oh, we learned all sorts of new, fancy things.
00:12:16.14 Like, we just learned how to use the tea-can machine.
00:12:18.22 And we're using the lambda red system
00:12:22.28 and all that fancy stuff.
00:12:24.14 Having to deal with failures in the lab.
00:12:31.20 The things that require you to put your tube in the machine and trust that it works
00:12:38.19 because it's hard to figure out what actually went wrong when it doesn't work.
00:12:43.12 Yeah, so, troubleshooting is really annoying.
00:12:45.21 All the knowledge, to try to get all the things that you never learned
00:12:49.20 from scratch to what we have our project at now, so that was very good.
00:12:55.17 There's always a challenging part every summer in iGEM,
00:12:58.22 I mean, being that this is my second year, but,
00:13:00.14 we always have a wall that we hit
00:13:03.01 and it's just, I mean, it just seems like everything works fine
00:13:07.14 and it's just, you can't really push past it,
00:13:09.17 but, you know, you just have to be persistent
00:13:11.02 and you know, I do believe we're going to get past it.
00:13:14.04 Because we always do.
00:13:16.01 Yeah, definitely, it will look awesome on your resume.
00:13:24.07 I was barely outside, but that didn't matter, because I had so much fun.
00:13:32.09 I didn't think it was going to be as fun as it was,
00:13:35.21 but it was really excited and a once in a lifetime experience.
00:13:41.09 If you want to continue in science,
00:13:43.09 you'll at least taste what's lab work and what are the great parts of it
00:13:48.10 and what's the bad parts of it. So, I think it's a good experience.
00:13:51.28 I think it's worth doing the second year.
00:13:54.28 It's kind of fun being the older one, I guess.
00:13:58.06 I definitely would, the experience is really, really worth it,
00:14:02.11 and I had a lot of fun doing it.
00:14:04.20 And you learn a lot, so,
00:14:06.05 I mean, to be honest, when I came out of iGEM we had this section on biotechnology in my bio course,
00:14:12.07 I didn't even have to read the book and I aced the quiz, and it was great.
00:14:15.05 Of course, because it's a really great experience, you learn science,
00:14:18.28 you do science, you meet new people, and interesting people,
00:14:22.01 it's just a really fun time altogether.

This Talk

Speaker: Wendell Lim

Audience:

Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
Student
Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: July 2012

Talk Overview

In 2007, the UCSF iGEM program was started to give talented students from San Francisco’s Abraham Lincoln High School a unique summer research experience while providing graduate students and post-docs at UCSF with valuable mentoring and teaching experience. Organized by Connie Lee, and led by Veronica Zepeda, UCSF Education Coordinator, the high school team works with UCSF researchers to design and implement a synthetic biology project that they take to the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. In this video, UCSF professor Wendell Lim and Lincoln High School biotechnology teacher George Cachianes describe how they started the program and why they stay involved, and students who participated in the 2012 competition tell us what they gained from the experience.

Speaker Bio

Wendell Lim

Wendell Lim

Wendell Lim is a Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and Director of the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. George Cachianes has been teaching biotechnology at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco for over… Continue Reading