On November 14th, the online global award ceremony of the final of the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (IGEM) was held. The NEFU_China team of the College of Life Science won an iGEM gold award for the fifth time with its project “G-quadruplex-Directed Colorimetric Virus Detection System.” In the section of individual awards, our school team stood out among 343 teams throughout the world, and was awarded BEST DIAGNOSIS PROJECT and BEST WIKI, and was nominated for the three individual awards of BEST PRESENTATION, BEST NEW BASIC PART and BEST PART COLLECTION. Together with Zhejiang University and ShanghaiTech University, it was one of the top three undergraduate teams from mainland China. This achievement also marked NEFU’s best achievement in the iGEM.

This year, the iGEM team of NEFU was based on the development of rapid virus detection methods. Based on the catalase-like properties of G-quadruplex DNA, this method was applied to the rapid detection of nucleic acid from the infectious virus. Compared with the traditional nucleic acid detection method based on RT-PCR, this method eliminated the complicated instrument operations required by the experiment, and has fast detection speed and visual detection results. Therefore, this scheme has broad prospects for application in the rapid screening of virus infections in underdeveloped areas. In the iGEM, the project received extensive attention from the judges and research teams from various countries.

Members of the NEFU_China laboratory came from many colleges such as the College of Life Sciences, Aulin College, and the School of Forestry. After eight years of development, an innovative experimental platform for undergraduates with multidisciplinary integration has gradually formed, with a team of scientific research consultants led by many professors from the College of Life Sciences, forming the research direction of functional Escherichia coli under the guidance of synthetic biology. During this period, many of its subjects have won numerous successes in innovation competitions, and many students have continued on to study at famous international or C9 universities. NEFU_China will also make persistent efforts to bring honor to the cultivation of first-class undergraduates in NEFU.