Australia’s first Biohackathon was held over the weekend!

Over the weekend 44 people making up 11 teams competed in Australia’s first ever BioHackathon held and hosted at ATP Innovations in Sydney. The teams: Biohackers, SurgION, TeamPINK, Biofilm Sites Identification (BSI), Potemkin, Future Film, Bayesian Biotechnologists, MacGyver, Olfacta, Kalliroe and Film Stars – all  teams were made up of engineers, designers, futurists, dentists, artists, microbiologists etc. and worked side by side in the ATP innovation labs, to generate a simple solution to a complex biotechnology problem. Many teams using every day materials, a bit like real-life MacGyvers.

The day was an eight hour competition aiming at producing novel approaches and solutions to a long standing real biology problem of great importance to the community. Never before in Australia has a problem previously exclusive to a selected few scientists been opened up to a wider audience.

The chosen problem to hack was:  “detection of bacteria forming biofilm leading to infection and death in the hospital environment”

Full Report Tomorrow!