Challenges in Undergraduate Synthetic Biology Training: Insights from a Canadian iGEM Student Perspective

• Published in: bioRxiv
• Main Authors: Diep, Patrick, Austin Boucinha, Bi-Ru, Amy Yeung, Kell, Brayden, Chen, Xingyu, Tsyplenkov, Daniel, Serra, Danielle, Escobar, Andres, Gnanapragasam, Ansley, Emond, Christian A, Sajtovich, Victoria A, Mahadevan, Radhakrishnan, Kilkenny, Dawn M, Gini-Newman, Garfield, Kaern, Mads, Ingalls, Brian
• Format: Paper
• Language: English
• Published: Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 05.11.2020; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
• Edition: 1.1
• Subjects: Biology; Genetic engineering; Scientific Communication and Education; Synthetic biology; synthetic biology; pedagogy; teaching; education; iGEM; design teams
• ISSN: 2692-8205; 2692-8205
• DOI: 10.1101/2020.11.04.365999

ABSTRACT The last two decades have seen vigorous activity in synthetic biology research and ever-increasing applications of synthetic biology technologies. However, pedagogical research on synthetic biology is scarce, especially when compared to some scientific and engineering disciplines. Within Canada, there are only three universities that formally teach synthetic biology programs; two of which are at the undergraduate level. Many Canadian undergraduate students are instead introduced to synthetic biology through participation in the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition where they work in design teams to conceive of and execute a synthetic biology project that they present at an international jamboree. We surveyed the Canadian landscape of synthetic biology education through the experience of students from the Canadian iGEM teams of 2019. Using a thematic codebook analysis, we gathered insights to generate recommendations that could empower future iGEM team operations and inform educators about best practices in teaching undergraduate synthetic biology. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Footnotes * * all authors are affiliated with the Canadian Synthetic Biology Education Research Group (CSBERG.org)