iGEM Team Stuttgart 2021

This year SERVA is again supporting an iGEM team with PRiME ready-to-use gels and reagents. The 11 students of the technical biology department in Stuttgart take a closer look at tardigrade. The Ecdysozoa found around the world are just 1mm long. But there is more in them than expected. They are survivors thanks to the ability to cryptobiosis. They decrease metabolism to a death-like state and wait for better conditions to continue to live. This means that even the vacuum in space or radioactive radiation cannot harm them. In this year’s iGEM competition, the Stuttgart team is interested in the ability of tardigrade to repair genetic damage through UV radiation. The protein “Dsup” is responsible for this. The iGEM Team Stuttgart 2021 would like to continue researching this protein and hopes to reproduce it using bacteria in the test tube. If that succeeds, an innovative new sun protection for surfaces and skin would be possible – the iGEM team has already christened the new sun protection “TardiSun”.

We wish you every success, lots of good results and keep our fingers crossed for the competition!