ITB Team Won Gold Medal in IGEM Boston

Oleh Ahmad Furqan Hala

Editor Ahmad Furqan Hala

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - Another international achievement was achieved by ITB student. This time, it is International Genetically Engineered Machine (IGEM) in Boston, United States. ITB Team won the Gold Medal for its research in Biosynthetic. The research is to study the process of synthesis of genetically engineered Eschericia coli to produce a protein that can be used to degrade PET plastic. PET plastic itself is a type of plastic which is commonly used as main material to produce the bottles for drinking water. There were four people who acted as the representatives of the team in the International Jamboree in Boston (30/10-03/11/14). They are Joko Pebrianto Trinugroho (magister in Biotechnology 2013), Tri Ekawati Heryanto (Magister in Biotechnology 2013), Kenia PErmata Sukma (Microbiology 2011) and Christian Heryakusuma (Chemistry 2012).
This achievement was obtained through a lot of hard work that begun in July. The scoring in this competition composed of three different aspects, those are idea generation, experimentation, and documentation of the conduct in the website. The idea that the team came up with needs to be informed to the whole society, including the whole members of ITB, related stakeholders and companies. After that, the next scoring is presentation in the form of poster and oral presentation at the Jamboree in Boston.

The International Jamboree was participated by more than 200 teams from 31 states. This opportunity sure was a very valuable experience and memories to the four representatives, since they had a chance to learn and recognize the development of biosynthetic from other state's representatives.

"The representatives come from all continents in the world. We got to learn and see how far we (from Indonesia) have ackonwledged this field compared to other states and countries. In the aspects of theory, we are not really different. However, in practices aspect, we are indeed far left behind," Joko said.

The atmospher at the event International Genetically Engineered Machine was conducive to all the participants who are interested to develop the biosynthetic in their countries, including Joko, which also acted as the leader of ITB Team. Synthetic biology is the engineering of living creatures such as bactery to do things that it does not usually do. For Joko, the biosynthetic that the participants have designed can be developed into an applicative solution to the problems ahead.  In Indonesia, this field has not been well-developed since the experts in this field are also limited. "Even the community in this field is very small still," He said.

In the future, ITB team wish that the result of their research can be booked in scietific journal as references in this field. Joko and the team also wish that this research can be applied, starting with the production of prototype of the plastic-degrading machine that they have designed.

The team is grateful to all the parties that have supported it, in the form of moral and material support, for the achievement it made.

"We are grateful to our supervisor, ITB itsef, LK, SITH, FMIPA, and all the sponsors that have supported us. We are also grateful to all the parties that have shared our work. Alhamdulillah, we wo the Gold Medals," Joko said.

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