Team:BostonU/HP/Tours
LabCentral is a place for young biotech startups to rent out lab space while they grow. Eventually, these startups grow large enough to "graduate," leaving LabCentral and acquiring their own private labs. Our sponsor Phenomyx invited us to tour the space and see how these startup companies work day to day. In addition, we were given the opportunity to present our project and listen to presentations by other iGEM teams.
Both BostonU iGEM teams traveled to Ginkgo Bioworks with several of our mentors to tour their lab facility and see some of their experiments, some of which focus on generating synthetic fragrances. We were particularly interested in the many innovations that exist in the integrative field of molecular cloning and automation, which Ginkgo is highly involved in. Both teams saw their academic research stepped up to an industrial scale.
While visiting Monsanto, we were given a presentation about what their work at their Cambridge branch. We learned about the process of protein optimization and that their scientists are working on designing a protein to integrate into crops that would be toxic to certain species of insects. In addition, they were excited to hear about both BostonU iGEM teams' projects. After both teams gave full presentations, both the students and the mentors were given a tour of their facilities.
