Team:Colombia Uniandes/Team

Daniel Giraldo

Daniel is an undergraduate Chemistry and Chemical Engineering double major senior at Universidad de los Andes. Although he decided to study Chemistry, he has always had an interest in Biology and is always eager to learn about other fields. He is very interested in learning more about organic chemistry applied to biological systems, which is why iGem is the perfect opportunity for him to explore a little bit into microbiology and synthetic biology. His very passionate about research and working at the lab. This year Daniel decided to hang the lab coat and joined the modeling team.

Laura Estefania Gonzalez Valenzuela

Laura is an undergraduated student of Microbiology and Biology at Universidad de los Andes. She joined iGEM this semester for the first time, and she’s been learning a lot about how biological systems work in terms of constants, rates and genetic networks. Through this experience she has met hardworking young people interested in science, that’s why she’s really excited about this competition, because is a new proposal to make science in our country.

Carlos Eduardo Posada

Carlos is an undergraduate student of Microbiology at Universidad de los Andes. He joined iGEM this year because he was amazed by the still untapped potential of synthetic biology. Through iGEM, he has learned a lot about molecular biology at the lab. He loves video games, specially the Nintendo ones, eating a lot and petting his two dwarf rabbits :) Genetics is the field that most attracts him in his career.

Daniel Sebastian Castaño

Daniel is an undergraduate student of Design and Systems Engineering. His abilities are the illustration, animation, video production and high performance computer management. He saw in this competition the opportunity to meet new people, test his own abilities, and learn via interdisciplinarity. Although it is his first time in the lab and in the modeling process, he is very happy due to the possibility to help and give his point of view. His objective is to show the importance of design and systems engineering in other disciplines, even though they are quite different.

Lina Contreras

Lina is an undergraduate student in Biology and Microbiology at Universidad de los Andes. She loves learning new things, that's why this year she decided to be part of iGEM Colombia team. She sees in iGEM the opportunity to meet new people who also love science, to be part of an interdisciplinary environment and to gain experience that will be useful in her future. Lina is part of the laboratory and Human practices.

Alejandra Castilla Asaf

Alejandra is an undergraduate student in Chemical Engineering at the Universidad de los Andes. She is interested in bioinformatics and biological systems, and how it would be apply to solve problems in the environment that will allow providing solutions to improve the quality of life. For this reason, iGEM is the perfect opportunity to learn more about the different microorganisms, molecular biology and programming. Also for know people with different and greats ideas, she thinks this will allow her to see things from another point of view and determine which benefits society, especially to Colombia, in order to promote the development of science and technology.

Carolina Salazar

Carolina is an undergraduate student in Biomedical Engineering and Biology. She has always had interest in how biological systems work and how their mechanisms may be applied to solve problems in medicine or in engineering practices. She sees in iGEM the opportunity to improve her design and computing skills as well as to gain knowledge on molecular and synthetic biology.

She is really excited to be part of this team as she knows she’ll meet new people from whom she may learn a lot!

Daniela Olivera

Daniela is an undergraduate student in Chemical engineering and Microbiology at the Universidad de los Andes. She is interested in bioinformatic and biomedical engineering research. This year Daniela is leading the mathematical model group. She loves to spend her little free time playing with her cat (named Anastasia), working on iGEM with her lucky friends, going to cinema and burning calories in the gym.

Maria Alejandra Hernandez Santana

Maria Alejandra is a Chemistry and Microbiology undergraduate student at Uniandes. She is part of Human Practices (HP) and Lab Teams, and even though she loves science and spending time in the lab, she also enjoys very much her activities of HP, because she thinks science should serve to improve society's life quality. That's why Ma. Alejandra found in iGEM the possibility to fuse her passion with her wish of saving the world:)

Laura Rodriguez

Laura is an undergraduate student in Chemistry and Microbiology at Universidad de los Andes. She is passionate about science, likes organic chemistry and loves bacteria! She is also curious and a realll hard worker. For her, iGEM has been an opportunity to learn, practice lab skills and making good friends!. She is really excited to meet people involved in science from another countries, this will give her a perspective of science outside her country and will also be a cultural enriching experience.

Paula Manuela Siauchó Unriza

Paula is an undergraduate student in Physics and Microbiology at Universidad de los Andes. She loves knowledge, she is very curious and she love everything related to science, specially anything related with live and how it can be modeled and understood whith Physics, it's amazing!. That's why she like so much iGEM, besides the social aspect that both proyects have and, off course, the experience of being part of this wonderful team.

Santiago Andrés Cadena Cerón

Santiago is an Electrical and Biomedical Engineering student at Universidad de los Andes.. He has a strong interest in computational neuroscience. Specifically in modelling stochastic and complex behavior.

Camilo Gómez Garzón

Camilo is an undergraduate student in Chemistry and Microbiology at Universidad de los Andes. He loves science and, specially, everything that combines these two areas of knowledge such as biochemistry, communication among bacteria, biocatalysis and molecular biology. He is currently working in Laboratory and Human Practices of Colombia iGEM Team, activity that he sees as a great opportunity to grow and improve as scientist and person; knowing new features and applications of synthetic biology and asking for problems that we can resolve with it.

Alejandro Otero Bravo

Alejandro is an undergraduate in Biology and Microbiology with a wide range of interests including entomology, animal evolution, biocontrol, molecular biology and systems biology. He also loves food, tattoos and punny humor. He joined iGEM to learn about lab work, systems biology and the information exchange between the scientist and the public.

César Augusto Quintana Cataño

Cesar is an undergraduate physics and microbiology student. He enjoys a lot working and achieving new memories in this competition. Science is one of his mayor passions as music and enjoying a great anime are. He likes a lot systems biology and biomechanics.

Silvia J Cañas

Silvia is a M.Sc student in Biological Sciences (Microbiology) at the Biophysics Laboratory and the Mycology and Phytopathology Laboratory (LAMFU) at the Universidad de los Andes. She is a B. Sc in Microbiology and B. Sc in Chemical Engineering of the Universidad de los Andes (Minors in Bioinformatics and Bioengineering), where she worked with Metabolic engineering. Her main areas of interest are Molecular Cell Biology and Systems & Synthetic Biology. She is currently investigating the effect of Sigma factors transitivity on persisters generation in Escherichia coli K12 . Some of the approaches she is using are based on Molecular Biology, Systems Biology & Epifluorescence Microscopy

Silvia Restrepo, Ph. D.

Dr. Restrepo is the leader and main researcher at the [http://lamfu.uniandes.edu.co Mycology and Plant Disease Laboratory] at [http://www.uniandes.edu.co Universidad de los Andes]. Additionally, she is the Dean of the [http://ciencias.uniandes.edu.co/index.php/es/home Faculty of Sciences]. Her main research topic is phytopathology, and her favorite organism is Phytophthora infestans. Website: [http://lamfu.uniandes.edu.co/ Lab Page]

Juan Manuel Pedraza, Ph. D.

Dr. Pedraza leads the Systems/Synthetic Biology division of the Biophysics Laboratory at Uniandes. His specialty is stochasticity in gene expression, but is getting more and more interested in evolution and the consequences of phenotypic variability.

Adriana Bernal, Ph. D.

Dr. Bernal is a Associated Proessor at the Universidad de los Andes, her main research topic is the Plant-Pathogen interactions of Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. manihotis with its main host. She is the co-director of LAMFU with Dr. Silvia Restrepo. Website: [http://lamfu.uniandes.edu.co/ Lab Page]