The “Patras Medicine” team of the University of Patras achieved an important distinction at the iGEM competition, under the “Therapeutics” category. The team, composed of students from the University of Patras, entered the competition with the “Morphe” project, proposing an innovative, targeted gene therapy for obesity, which is one of the main risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases and other complications of modern health. The “Patras Medicine” team project was awarded first place as “Best Therapeutics Project” in the undergraduate competition and landed 6th in the Grand Prize rankings, also receiving nominations for “Best New Composite Part”, “Best Presentation”, “Best Wiki” and “Best Sustainable Development Impact”.

The iGEM competition is the largest synthetic biology competition in the world. It began in 2003 as an event organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has since been held annually by the iGEM Foundation. Its goal is to highlight innovative ideas that could solve everyday health problems through the possibilities offered by synthetic biology. This year’s competition saw the participation of the University of Patras team “Patras Medicine”, among more than 400 teams from 50 different countries, including leading universities such as Cambridge, MIT, Stanford, etc. The main focus of the competition is innovation and interdisciplinarity, with particular emphasis on the development and modification of biological and chemical molecules, which is essential knowledge for students of Chemistry, Biology, pharmacy, and medicine, but also in modeling them, which is particularly useful for students in other departments who wish to use their knowledge of engineering and computer science to solve complex biological and health problems.

Congratulations to all the “Patras Medicine” team members!