Background
What does iGEM stand for?
International Genetically Engineered Machine
Name the most commonly used bacterium for transformation.
Escherichia coli (E. coli)
What do DNA & RNA stand for?
DeoxyriboNucleic Acid & RiboNucleic Acid.
What is synthetic biology?
A field of science that involves redesigning organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities.
What is the name of our 2026 mascot?
Sandyx.
What year did NYUAD join iGEM?
2015
Define a plasmid.
A small circular piece of double stranded DNA that is distinct from the main chromosomal DNA of a bacterial cell.
What is a common laboratory technique used to make millions or billions of copies of DNA?
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
COVID mRNA vaccine.
How many times did NYUAD iGEM win a gold medal?
3 times (2017, 2024, 2025)
Who can participate in iGEM?
High school, undergrad and overgrad.
Name one method used to artificially introduce foreign DNA through a bacterial cell wall.
Heat shock OR Electroporation
What is the only protein coding RNA?
Messenger RNA.
What was the first commercially available GMO?
The Flavr Savr Tomato by Calgene (FDA approved in 1994).
Bioremediation.
How many teams have participated in iGEM since its beginning?
5551
What are the must-have's of a vector?
Promoter, Origin of replication (ORI), Selectable marker, Multiple cloning site (MCS), Ribosome binding site (RBS).
List the 3 stop codons.
UAA, UAG, UGA
Name a biotechnological tool used for precise genome editing.
CRISPR/Cas9.
What special prize did the 2025 team win?
Best Integrated Human Practices Award
List 5 of the iGEM 2026 villages.
Agriculture, Fashion & Cosmetics, Food & Nutrition, Conservation, Bioremediation, Diagnostics, Infectious Diseases, Oncology, Therapeutics, Art & Design, Biomanufacturing, Foundational Advance, Software & AI, Space.
Name a cloning method used to assemble and insert parts of DNA into a vector.
Golden gate assembly OR Gibson assembly
Name five amino acids (full name).
Alanine - ala - A
Arginine - arg - R
Asparagine - asn - N
Aspartic acid - asp - D
Cysteine - cys - C
Glutamine - gln - Q
Glutamic acid - glu - E
Glycine - gly - G
Histidine - his - H
Isoleucine - ile - I
Leucine - leu - L
Lysine - lys - K
Methionine - met - M
Phenylalanine - phe - F
Proline - pro - P
Serine - ser - S
Threonine - thr - T
Tryptophan - trp - W
Tyrosine - tyr - Y
Valine - val - V
What does CRISPR stand for?
Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats
What bacteria are we engineering for our 2026 project?
Bacillus subtilis