The opioid crisis in B.C. has been well documented, with many of the deaths occurring from illicit opioids.
The 2019 Northern B.C. iGEM team will be competing at the iGEM 2019 Championship in Boston this fall, with their entry coming from a harm reduction perspective.
iGEM stands for The International Genetically Engineered Machine which is a foundation. They are an independent and non-profit organization and are dedicated to the advancement of synthetic biology, education and competition as well as the development of an open community and collaboration.
The group originally started in January 2003 as an independent study course at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) where students made biological devices which would make cells blink.
In 2004, the competition took place with five teams and grew to 13 in 2005. In 2017, the competition had 310 teams from more than 40 countries.
(via Northern B.C. iGEM/Facebook)UNBC students make up the 2019 Northern B.C. iGEM team that is working to develop a sensor to alert anyone handling drugs to the presence of opioids.
The team says their project would detect any opioids present before consumption, which would decrease the chances of an accidental illicit drug overdose death.
The Northern B.C. team was also selected as one of 10 winners of the 2019 Promega iGEM grant, which saw more than 150 applications.
They're also one of only 16 teams from Canada that will make the trip to Boston from Oct. 31, 2019 to Nov. 4, 2019, including teams from Toronto, Ottawa, Lethbridge, Guelph, and Montreal.
Northern B.C. will also compete against teams from Greece, the United States, China, India, Brazil, Japan, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Sweden, the U.K., Taiwan, Mexico, New Zealand, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, and many others.
