AN ASPIRING scientist from Sutherland is part of a team project conducting research on a global scale.
Mark Somerville is one of six University of Sydney undergraduates competing in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition.
Dedicated to educating the world's future scientists of synthetic biology, the competition gives hundreds of young people the opportunity to build biological systems and operate them in living cells.
Synthetic biology can be described as designing new biological systems, or redesigning existing natural systems for useful purposes.
Former entrants have had their project developed within the fields of health, agriculture and the environment.
The competition is an extracurricular project students carry out alongside their degrees, with the help of their lecturers.
Mr Somerville, who is studying for a degree in science majoring in biochemistry and biology, said the research aimed to pave the way for future researchers to create more antiviral medicines.
His team is working with a particular molecule in HIV research.
"We're basically taking a gene from one organism and putting it into another," he said.
"There is a lot of misunderstanding about genetically modified organisms, and many people distrust it because they aren't educated or informed about how things work.
"In the long term, we hope this project will lay the foundation for [changing] that."
The team is running a science writing competition on strangenature.org that is open to Australian students.
