RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Research laboratories in iGEM are pursuing a Pattern-Process-Prediction-Product (P4) paradigm. We conduct fundamental research to first discover biological patterns and to elucidate processes that have generated these patterns over evolutionary time. Our mission is to harness the knowledge of these patterns and processes in making predictions about genomes, diseases, and biodiversity. Ultimately, we develop new tools and resources that enable scientists to accelerate biological discovery and predictions.
iGEM researchers are pursuing a variety of interdisciplinary research and discovery projects, including:
GENOMICS OF HEALTH
Our personal genomes differ from each other and many of these differences are known to predispose us
to diseases and to modulate our response to drugs and medical treatments. iGEM researchers are
discovering the relationship of natural selection with genetic diseases and developing new methods
and tools to identify harmful personal differences (mutations).
DISEASE DYNAMICS
Pathogens are constantly evolving to avoid drugs and medicine and to invade new hosts and geographic
areas. iGEM researchers are investigating the when, how, and why of pathogen evolution by taking
comparative genomics approaches and developing new analytical frameworks for predictive modelling.
BIOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY
Genome sequencing advances have revolutionized our ability to understand the diversity of life. The
tree of life scaled to time (the "TimeTree") is the primary component of this diversity and underlies
much of the evolutionary medicine research. iGEM researchers are conducting genome scale data
acquisitions and analyses to build the Timetree of Life and developing state-of-the-art methods
and tools to facilitate big data inferences in this field.
