Our Crowdfunding Groups
iGEM at Berkeley's mission is to provide undergraduates with the opportunity to perform original, student-led genetic engineering research projects. By building each student's technical skillset, ability to work as a team, and passion for research, iGEM seeks to make synthetic and computational biology research accessible to students of all backgrounds and experience levels. iGEM at Berkeley's projects are driven by undergraduate students and guided by graduate student mentors. Our projects, which are often students' first research experience, enable students to impact and advance the greater scientific community. The funds raised through our crowdfunding campaign help provide necessary supplies and compute for research. They also support iGEM at Berkeley events like Breaking into Biosciences, a panel that spotlights diverse success stories in STEM as well as the Bay Area Bioengineering Symposium, an event we host in collaboration with UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, and Stanford.
Our Story
iGEM at Berkeley is a student organization that began with the goal of giving students the creative freedom to explore questions and conduct research in the field of synthetic biology with the ultimate goal of competing in the annual global iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines) competition. However, our organization’s mission has evolved to increase accessibility of the synthetic biology and bioengineering community to students of all backgrounds and research experience levels at Cal. By cultivating every student’s technical skill set, fostering collaborative experience in team settings, and encouraging passions for niches of bioengineering research, iGEM has grown to support and train a community of over 400 members; our Training teams, educational resources, and events are open to all general members without any selection process.
Some of our experimental and new ideas teams presenting their work at our End-Of-Semester Symposium!
Our One-of-a-Kind Structure
We break away from the traditional iGEM team format through our emphasis and dedication to accessible research training through education materials and providing lab space for building foundational skills and preparing to conduct supervised, undergraduate-initiated research. We have created a specialized Training Team, a student-powered program which provides students with a semester-long crash course in synthetic biology. Our members have created an entire curriculum to teach new members everything from basic laboratory skills to designing and testing scientific questions of their own.
A student in our faculty advisor's lab participating in our new training program.
With the knowledge they gain from their time in Training Team, members are then transitioned into either a New Ideas team or an Experimental team. As of Spring 2024, over 70 members participate in iGEM’s project teams, which are entirely student-initiated. In New Ideas teams, students explore areas of synthetic biology and perform extensive literature review, identify gaps in current knowledge, and ideate unique ways to solve their questions. Once their idea is shown to be scientifically sound and viable, New Ideas teams can then transition into Experimental teams, where students are provided resources to carry out necessary experiments and gather data. Our organization currently has 7 Experimental teams: 4 wet-lab teams and 3 computational biology teams. These teams are exploring questions such as creating more efficient ways to perform traditional cloning methods, and developing a pipeline for mining and processing chemical reactions from published scientific literature. Experimental members can receive research credit through iGEM at Berkeley through BioE 99, 199, H194, and 196. We are also creating a wet-lab training program, where students will be trained to do basic synthetic biology techniques in the lab setting, before transitioning into an experimental team.
A wet lab experimental member plating her cells as part of our training program.
In the following graphs, we reflect on the statistics of our membership over the past nine semesters we have been active. We are a rapidly expanding organization, which reflects the undergraduate population’s demand for accessible, quality research experiences.
With these projects under their belt, iGEM experimental team members and FERB students are able to take their skills and apply them to the broader area of synthetic biology and bioengineering research at UC Berkeley. Our students present their projects at poster sessions, symposiums, and actively share their findings with professors, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, and community members in attendance.
A full day of presentations, poster sessions, and insightful discussions on undergraduate synthetic biology research at universities across the Bay Area.
In Spring 2024, we launched the inaugural Bay Area Bioengineering Symposium (BABS), a collaborative effort on the part of the newly formed Bay Area SynBio Alliance (featuring student groups iGEM at Berkeley, UCSC iGEM, Stanford iGEM, and BioInnovation Group at UC Davis). The event welcomed more than 200 attendees and 25 presenting group, with special presentations from a keynote speaker, UC Berkeley's Professor Adam Arkin, and industry speaker, Paul Westberg. We eagerly look forward to BABS 2025 for another inspiring, action-packed gathering of early-career synthetic biologists.
Donations
Every aspect of running our lab space, from writing grants to conducting experiments, is done by students. This means every dollar donated is critical to our operations. Our budget includes thousands of dollars in material costs, equipment purchases, and competition fees. Your donations go directly towards supporting these expenses, and allow students to bring their bioengineering ideas to life.
This budget provides a rough estimate only, and actual expenditures may vary.
This is an exhaustive budget, and the money we raise from crowdfunding contributes to all these components.
In case we do not reach our goal, we will split the fund we do receive between our wet lab, team-building/professional development, events, and recruitment expenses. If we surpass this goal, funds will be saved and allocated for our next fiscal year.
Our Vision
Our ultimate goal is to create a physical biomakerspace for the Berkeley undergraduate community: a space that provides necessary resources and support to anyone with a bioengineering idea. Existing biomakerspaces are models for our vision of a community where students can gain hands-on exposure to solving bioengineering problems outside of the classroom, engage in spontaneous discussions, and spearhead their own ideas in collaboration with other Berkeley students. Under the supervision of Dr. John Anderson, who graciously is mentoring our teams and providing his lab space for our organization’s use, iGEM at Berkeley wants to take this first step in making this physical environment a reality and meeting this student demand through additional equipment and funding opportunities for external scientific communication. Responding with substantial steps toward growth, we hope to cement Berkeley’s iGEM team as a community-oriented success for other universities to model and scale student experience, both crucial for impactful postgraduate careers in bioengineering or adjacent fields.
A photo from one of our monthly all-hands meetings where all our members convene to share progress.
We ultimately anticipate that iGEM will promote the advancement of technology by giving students the opportunity to pursue innovation in biotechnology that is not currently possible. The necessary overhead for projects in biotechnology, laboratory space and reagents, provides a greater hurdle to students interested in biotechnology compared to those in other fields of technology. We hope to reduce this barrier and provide opportunities for students with an interest in biotechnology to pursue their ideas and develop their creativity, and it would not be possible without your support.
Stay In Touch
Our social media and website are constantly updated with our newest projects, progress, and events. Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or igem.studentorg.berkeley.edu to follow our journey!
If you have any questions, contact us at directors@igem.berkeley.edu.
You will be given a shoutout on our Instagram to acknowledge your support of our club!
You will be given four of our iGEM stickers: ranging from an exclusive, unreleased version of our logo to cute CRISPR-themed designs created by our members. *Note: in order to receive your stickers, please make a public donation and email your address to us at directors@igem.berkeley.edu.
With this perk, your name will be listed on our iGEM website as a sponsor! This tier also includes all aforementioned perks. *Note: in order to receive your stickers, please make a public donation and email your address to us at directors@igem.berkeley.edu.
With this perk, your name will be listed on our iGEM student merchandise as a sponsor! Also, we will personally thank you by name in our Thank You video. This tier also includes all aforementioned perks. *Note: in order to receive your stickers, please make a public donation and email your address to us at directors@igem.berkeley.edu.
