On November 4, 2019, the 16th international Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) rang the curtain down in Boston, USA. Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) established a team with Georgia State University (GSU) for the first time to compete with 375 representative teams (totaling over 5,000 teachers and students) from universities such as Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Tsinghua University and Peking University from over 40 countries. The team of SWJTU and GSU won the Bronze Award finally, showing the style of students from SWJTU.

The iGEM was founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003, and has been held for 16 sessions. With the purpose of encouraging university students to be creative, the iGEM is a top international academic competition with synthetic biology as the core and featuring interdisciplinary cooperation. Teams participating in the iGEM are required to use standard DNA biobricks to build genetic circuits and valid mathematical models, so as to predict, operate and measure the exquisite and complicated artificial biological system. Meanwhile, these teams are also required to exchange and cooperate with other teams, study and analyze the society and complete other tasks.

Faculty advisers of the team of SWJTU and GSU included Doctor Matt Brewer and Doctor HongMei Zhang from GSU, as well as Huang Xinhe and Liao Hai from School of Life Science and Engineering of SWJTU. Team members were composed of 10 GSU students and 7 students majoring in biology (Sino-US cooperation) at School of Life Science and Engineering of SWJTU.

The team participated in the iGEM with "Coral Bleaching" Project, which aimed at relieving coral bleaching and extinction and maintaining the colorful nature and environmental diversity. Through the method of synthetic biology, the Project is expected to modify the activity of coralline symbiotic algae, so as to relieve coral bleaching and extinction. Through the Project, the genetic engineering of coralline symbiotic algae is established by taking practical issues into account and adopting the design idea of synthetic biology, thus providing new solutions to coral bleaching and extinction, a worldwide problem. On the spot, the team introduced the Project in all aspects in such forms as display of WiKi webpage, posters and report, receiving unanimous praise from the jury.

The establishment of this team is the result of in-depth cooperation in undergraduate education program in biology between SWJTU and GSU, which began to enroll students in 2013.