Genetic Machines Competition
The Princeton Packet has an article about Princeton's participation in the iGEM competition, a competition organized by MIT among forty schools from around the world and aimed at creating synthetic genetic "machines".
The 2006 team from Princeton is led by Professors Ron Weiss (electrical engineering) and Ihor Lemischka (molecular biology).
Quoting the article...
"I think it's critical for biology to embrace a lot of the engineering practices," said Professor Weiss. While biology has become increasingly quantitative -- or numbers-based -- over the years, he said, synthetic biology goes beyond that in the way in which engineering principles are used to manipulate and create biological materials that can be "wired" to perform certain functions.
The Princeton iGEM 2006 team's research on mouse embryonic stem cells is in keeping with an ongoing collaboration between the laboratories of Professors Weiss and Lemischka, Professor Weiss said, and the university's "stem-cell initiative" to promote and formalize the stem-cell research taking place in a variety of departments.
...
The research has an ultimate goal of giving "more capabilities to stem cells," Professor Weiss said, that may one day be used to repair severed spinal cords or treat Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
The Princeton team is sponsored by departments of molecular biology and electrical engineering, the Provost's Office, PRISM, the PRISM REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) program and the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education.
Update: Now, there's this related article on the main Princeton University news site.