Team:TU-Delft/Joep

Dear mother, iGEM contestant from another team or random person who googled my name. I'm the stowaway from the university of Leiden who ended up in this team. My main jobs are playing around with pipettes and colouring inside of the lines, which can be seen on the wiki and our posters. With Biology as my main background I got a chance to work with plants, animals and micro-organisms. Although every aspect of life is equally interesting, the simplicity and -at the same time- complexity of bacteria led me in the direction of microbiology. During my bachelor internship under the supervision of Dennis Claessen I have worked with Streptomyces, a soil organism which is not only important for our ecosystem, but also for us! These bacteria produce a wide array of different antibiotics, at least three quarter of the antibiotics we use originate from these bacteria. The iGEM competition was announced during a work discussion and the following week I was paying my first visit to Delft. The iGEM is a great opportunity to spend some time on the playground of genetic engineering and to learn more about this young area of research.