Leiden University: Leiden iGEM students win two prizes in international biology competition

The students of iGEM Leiden 2021 have scored well in the eponymous biology competition: they won a Gold Medal and the Best Safety & Security Award. The student team received the awards for their project DOPL LOCK, in which the team tries to make genetic modification safer.

It is not the sexiest of subjects, the students of iGEM Leiden are the first to admit, but safe genetic modification is extremely important. The use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is strictly regulated precisely because it sometimes lacks this safety. A shame, because GMOs could be useful allies in the fight against major environmental problems, the iGEM team felt. For the international biology competition iGEM, the students therefore came up with a smart chain lock for GMOs: the Double Plasmid Lock, or DOPL LOCK for short (see this news item for more information).