Synthetic biology has many definitions, one including the claim that its goal is to "engineer novel life systems." It is with this goal that part of the emerging discipline's platform is to do for biology what electrical engineering did for the study of circuits and electrons: to standardize strands of DNA that produce proteins with known functions so that they can be manipulated and recombined in a novel way. Drew Endy, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, is the American spokesperson for this view on synthetic biology, and he has been working on creating a conceptual framework for standardizing biological systems. Endy co-founded the BioBrick Foundation, which has attempted to create a useable standard, with universal "sticky ends" (ligation sites) on each side of the DNA strand (called a "part" in synthetic biology vocabulary), and has been building a database of such parts, called the "Registry."In this vein of synthetic biology, as well, exists the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition. iGEM, started as an informal competition on the MIT campus in 2004, has grown to include more than 80 teams from all over the world, in 2008. The teams' goal? To use synthetic biology principles--those of Endy and Randy Rettberg--and the Registry to characterize new biological parts and to use known biological parts to "engineer biological systems" (mostly E. Coli and yeast) to function in new ways. The projects are generally grouped in two categories: engineering biological systems (1) to remediate a perceived human problem (MIT's 2008 project was an attempt to manipulate the DNA of yogurt bacteria so that it would express a gene that produces an enzyme clinically shown to fight against tooth decay) or (2) to better the protocols of doing synthetic biology (one of UC Berkeley's 2008 projects was an attempt to move the manipulation of DNA to within a live E. Coli-hoping to streamline the process and lower the amount of additives needed to do synthetic biology).