In this episode, Dr. Mark McNees sits down with Roderick Meyer and Jacob Gottlieb the team leaders of the Florida State University undergraduate students who earned a gold medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition Nov. 4 in Boston for their innovation combating citrus greening.

Citrus greening is a bacterial disease affecting 80% of Florida citrus crops. FLOEMA is a rapid prototyping platform of antimicrobial peptide cocktails designed to function as a bactericidal agent against the infection. Integrating hardware, wetware, and software, FLOEMA is able to offer citrus growers with a feasible solution to this bacterial epidemic. We are focused on leading the movement of saving Florida’s citrus with synthetic biology in an innovative, multidisciplinary atmosphere enriched with empathy, curiosity, and ingenuity.

FSU’s entry competed in a field of 360 teams from around the world. FSU was one of only eight American teams to earn gold and the first team from Florida. The other gold medal-winning American teams were MIT, Cornell, Virginia, Rice, Pittsburgh, UT-Austin and a combined squad from Stanford, Princeton, and Brown.

Read the article: https://news.fsu.edu/news/science-technology/2019/11/14/fsu-students-earn-gold-medal-at-international-synthetic-biology-competition/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_big_story_november_18_2019&utm_term=2019-11-18