December 2012 –DTRA announces the 1M Algorithm Challenge to characterize a clinical sample from DNA sequencing data. http://www.prweb.com/releases/dtra/algorithm/prweb10233480.htm The challenge was managed by the online platform Innocentive: https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9933138 Innocentive is actually interesting to look at: (CIA through IN-Q-Tel) crowdsources scientific problems to solvers (http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/11/29/how-in-q-tel-helps-cia-scout-for-innovative-technology-model-for-other-agencies/) Although very enthusiastic at first, I did not participate in the …
GenoTHREAT is now open source (find it on Source Forge). The press release: BLACKSBURG, Va., March 21, 2011 – A software package designed to minimize the potential risks of synthetic biology for the nation’s defense and security is now available to the gene synthesis industry and synthetic biology community in an open-source format. Virginia Tech …
The iGEM team was invited by the FBI to present their work to 30 representatives of 15 government agencies. And we visited the FBI headquarters!
The iGEM team already got results! Their project on GenoTHREAT is to be pursued: NSF awarded $1,000,000 to further develop the sequence screening software. More details: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1060776
The team of students I am advising for iGEM 2010, VT-ENSIMAG biosecurity, is featured in this press release. They are working on implementing and characterizing the federal guidance on synthetic genomics and on building a corresponding software called GenoTHREAT. Learn more in BioTechniques and on Genomeweb.