Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the intestine. About 2 million Europeans suffer from IBD with thousands of new cases every year. Diagnosis of IBD goes via different medical procedures; biochemical, radiologic, histologic and endoscopic. Endoscopy is the most invasive of these procedures and therefore, the most unpleasant. Unfortunately, this technique is necessary to establish a diagnosis for IBD. Team iGEM Eindhoven 2021 would like to make the current diagnostic procedure more pleasant, by making it non-invasive. Luke Rossen of the TU/e iGEM team elaborates.
The iGEM competition was organized for the first time in 2003 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The aim was to encourage students to try to solve real-world problems using genetically engineered organisms. It has grown enormously over the years and is now the largest synthetic biology competition, with more than 360 teams participating from all over the world yearly.
Luke Rossen is a Biomedical Engineering master’s student specializing in Chemical Biology at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He has always been passionate about all things biological, chemical and physical. Knowing exactly how everything around us works, and how we can manipulate it to our advantage is something that keeps him busy on a daily basis. He joined the iGEM competition as a chance to apply his knowledge and interest, develop himself, and potentially make his first real contribution to science.
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