iGEM at Berkeley: An Open-Access Synthetic Biology Hub

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 FERB students 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 DeCal, also known as FERB (Foundations of Engineering Research Biology), 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 an Experimental team. As of Fall 2025, over 40 members participate in iGEM’s project teams, which are entirely student-initiated. In Experimental 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. All teams are provided resources to help them translate their questions to carry out necessary experiments and gather data. Our organization currently has 8 Experimental teams: 5 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. In our Training Team DeCal, students can research class units as they are trained to do basic synthetic biology techniques in the lab setting. 

FERB students and instructors from our Fall 2025 DeCal offering, in the lab, at symposiums, and outside of the lab!.

Each semester, we are able to train 15 undergraduate students in these fundamental skills, but this number is strongly limited by our budget and experimental resources. We are in the process of expanding the classes and doubling our capacity, which will be possible through continued funds to support iGEM. 

In the following graphs, we reflect on the statistics of our membership over the past twelve semesters we have been active. We are a constantly growing organization, which reflects the undergraduate population’s demand for accessible, quality research experiences. 

• Total Membership: reflects experimental, general, training team, and administrative members of our organization 
• Experimental Membership: reflects members on active project teams (wet-lab or computational biology teams) 
• General Membership: reflects members that have access to all of our events (workshops, training team, educational resources, and more)
• Unit Takers: experimental or Training Team members that opt to take research units for their training and experimentation

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 wet lab experimental member plating her cells as part of our training program.

In Spring 2024, we launched the inaugural annual 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). This event is now in its third year, and we have welcomed more than 400 attendees and 50 presenting groups since 2024, with special presentations from UC Berkeley faculty, Professor Adam Arkin and Professor Leah Guthrie, and industry speaker, Paul Westberg. We eagerly look forward to BABS 2026 for another inspiring, action-packed gathering of early-career synthetic biologists. 

A full day of presentations, poster sessions, and insightful discussions on undergraduate synthetic biology research at universities across the Bay Area.

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 is an exhaustive budget, and the money we raise from crowdfunding contributes to all these components. 
All estimates are rough only, and actual expenditures may vary.

In case we do not reach our goal, we will split the fund we do receive to prioritize our wet lab and training team 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. 

iGEM members visiting Tetsuwan Scientific at our first biotechnology company tour this past October.

Under the supervision of Dr. John C. Anderson, who graciously is mentoring our teams and providing his lab space for our organization’s use, iGEM at Berkeley takes the 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 believe 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, Twitter, LinkedIn or igem.studentorg.berkeley.edu to follow our journey!

If you have any questions, contact us at directors@igem.berkeley.edu.