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Developing Our Team

In order to achieve our goals and develop FREDsense, we required a diverse background of skill sets. Six members of the 2012 Calgary iGEM team joined forces to become part of the FREDsense team. Our skills represent a variety of technical specialities ranging from genetics, biochemistry, and microbiology to electrochemistry. To ensure our venture's success, we enlisted the aid of technical, business, and legal experts to our advisory board. This has aided in producing a dynamic team that will be able to deliver on FREDsense's goals and bring our technology to market.

Building the FREDsense Team

The team is a critical component of any business and is therefore of critical importance to ensure our success within FREDsense. FREDsense was born out of the Calgary 2012 iGEM project, which developed the initial ideas for the technology behind our toxin detecting device. While the team was composed of over 30 students, six key players have joined together to develop this technology into a feasible business. Because of the number of students and professors which were involved in the previous year's project, numerous tasks were assigned to determine our group's right to operate within the framework of the iGEM competition. Our approach to IP protection, and how we have collected our intellectual property can be found in the IP section of the wiki.

With a core group of individuals identified to lead the company through it's early development, it was additionally important to determine what positions our company would need in order to have success. While our present group has a detailed technical background, we lacked the business and legal framework required to achieve success within the company. We identified the most critical components of our business could be grouped into four key divisions listed below:

While many of these positions are not of critical importance within an early start-up framework, our group aims to bring on players with key skill sets in all four of these major divisions of our company. Achieving an advisory board (detailed below) of strong players with technical, business, and legal expertise has been our first step in bringing the right people into our company. The evolution of our team will occur as skill sets are needed, identifying business and technical experts to aid in engineering and prototype development of our system and in financial recording and accounting.

Team Members

Our team consists of six members from diverse technical backgrounds. Each member played a critical role in developing the technology from the 2012 Calgary iGEM team and has played a significant role in playing multiple roles in business development of FREDsense Technologies.

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Robert Mayall

I have just graduated with my Bachelors degree from the University of Calgary. This is my third year being involved with iGEM, and my first trip into the entrepreneurial category. I was heavily involved in the technical design of FRED and am the electrochemist for our group. I will continue my technical role as a member of FREDsense Technologies by focusing on the development of our platform technology.

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Emily Hicks

This is my fourth summer in iGEM, which probably means that I really need to get a life. This summer I will be working on both team OSCAR and FRED as well as yelling at people in the lab for leaving the gel boxes open and moving the enzymes. I’ll no doubt be enjoying the late nights in the lab and hope to learn by the end of the season how to successfully carry a gel from the lab to the imager in one piece. In my spare time I enjoy beating David at flight control, collecting stuffed pandas and other important tasks.

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Lisa Oberding

I have just graduated from the University of Calgary with a degree in Cellular, Molecular, and Microbial Biology. This is my first year with iGEM, which I got involved with as a chance to gain more research experience, learn about synthetic biology, and further define my research interests. Outside of the lab I enjoy snowboarding in the Rockies (sliding down the mountain on my face), camping (being chased by angry insects), reading, and drawing (possibly the only two safe hobbies I have- unless you count paper cuts). On the team this year I have mostly been a part of the desulfurization project, as well as helping out with a transposon library screen. And, as of yet, I have not set myself or anything else on fire.

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Maggie Renaud-Young

I am in my fourth year of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology PhD program in the Southern Alberta Cancer Biology Research Grouphttps://2013.igem.org/Main_Page at the University of Calgary. The focus of my studies is the cellular response to obstructed DNA replication, and how disturbances to this process contribute to genome instability using the budding yeast model system. This is the second year that I have worked with iGEM and it is has been a great experience for me. I really enjoy the team approach of taking composite parts to build systems that can perform unique biological functions. I love the social aspect of being on the team and I especially look forward to attending the Jamborees.

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David Lloyd

This is my fourth year being involved in iGEM in which time I have had the opportunity to work with the Alberta team for two years as an undergraduate and now as a team advisor for Calgary for the second year. I am in the process of completing my MSc in Biochemistry and have many interests including Genetics, Immunology, Cell Biology, Bioinformatics, and Microbiology. In the future, I hope to merge my passions for Biochemistry, Cell Biology, and Synthetic Biology into an exciting career, opening up a biotechnology company around biological solutions to everyday problems. iGEM has been an amazing opportunity and I greatly look forward to another year in the competition!

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Iain George

I just completed my undergraduate degree in Cellular, Molecular and Microbial Biology at the University of Calgary. Currently, I work in Dr. Howard Ceri and Dr. Ray Turner labs studying how bacterial biofilms can be used to cleanup toxic environments. My research has focused two species of Pseudomonas that can interact with and possibly degrade naphthenic acids and chlorinated biphenyl while contending with heavy metal conditions. This fall I am beginning a Masters project studying functional genomics in yeast. This is my first year working with the team and it has given me the great chance to mentor my teammates and learn new skills. When I am not living in the lab, you'll find me in the amazing mountains and trying my hand at photography.

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Patrick Wu

I'm wrapping up my fourth year in Bioinformatics, which means that once I graduate, I will pretend to know both biology and computer science. In reality, the only computer science I can probably do is HTML, and so my primary work this year was building this wiki. And drawing cute things. Both of these responsibilities have made me into a pretty big design geek over the summer. This is my third year in iGEM, and I continue to work against the advice and concerns of my friends and family physician. In my "spare time" I draw, do karate, and sleep (a dying art).

Advisors

Our advisory board consists of several technical, business, and law experts who were carefully selected to aid in devleoping FREDsense Technologies.

Dr. Lisa Gieg

I have been doing research in the field of environmental microbiology for about 20 years. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, and worked for a dozen years as a PDF and Senior Researcher at the University of Oklahoma before coming to the University of Calgary as an Assistant Professor in Biological Sciences. My research focuses on petroleum metabolism by microbes in the context of oil spill clean-up, microbial enhanced energy recovery, pipeline biocorrosion, and in oil sands tailings ponds remediation. This is my third year being involved with iGEM. It is a pleasure to work with dynamic, smart, and talented students and colleagues who are exploring the use of synthetic biology to develop products that can help solve real world problems.

Dr. Robert Lawrence Mallach

Dr. Sean Caffry

I currently work for Genome Alberta and I manage a large genomics research project (www.hydrocarbonmetagenomics.com) that is investigating how to use the microbes, genes, enzymes, and pathways indigenous to hydrocarbon resource environments to make energy extraction more efficient and less environmentally impactful. I obtained a Ph.D. in Functional Genomics from the University of Calgary and I am now working towards obtaining an MBA from the Haskayne School of Business. My MBA studies are focused on technology transfer and this is also how I hope to assist the iGEM team. This is my first year of involvement with the iGEM and it has a pleasure to be associated with such a motivated and creative team.

John Mackay

Dr. Chris Dambrowitz

Chris Dambrowitz is Director of Bioindustrial Strategic Initiatives for the Alberta-based Biorefining Conversions Network (BCN), an industrial-academic collaborative network developing novel bioproducts and bioprocesses. He currently coordinates an initiative to establish the Alberta BioFoundry, utilizing synthetic biology and bioanalytical platforms to address economically-important opportunities within Alberta's resources-based industrial sectors. Joining BCN from his recent position as Director - Planning & Development with the Alberta Research & Innovation Authority (ARIA) Secretariat, Chris also served as Director of Alberta Ingenuity's Accelerators Program and was the founding Program Director of the Alberta Prion Research Institute. This complements his project management and technology development experience in the bioanalytical and biotechnology industries, including positions with MDS Sciex and Genome Prairie (Concord ON), Blue Heron Biotechnology (Bothell WA), Visible Genetics (Toronto ON) and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (Chalk River ON). Chris received his PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Alberta, performing his doctoral research in the bioanalytical instrumentation laboratory of Dr. Norm Dovichi.

Dr. Anwar Haq

A multi-disciplinary professional with over thirteen years academic and medical research, market development, Intellectual Properties (IP) and project management and business incubation experience. As an Executive Director to the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases, Dr Haq’s primary role is to help create and then implement and evaluate strategic business plan of the Institute ensuring that programs stay relevant and operationally and fiscally sustainable. He provides successful leadership in advancing marketing and brand stewardship to best manage the stakeholders’ experience with the Institute. He is a primary resource person and point of contact for the Institute on the organizational, operational and fiscal policies and procedures related to the Faculty of Medicine at University of Calgary, Alberta Health Services (AHS) and its allies. Currently Dr Haq is also pursuing his Master in Public Policy at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary. His major interest lies in healthcare research investments policy implications and innovation gap in the industry. He is an active community volunteer for science outreach, community engagement-focused organization/s, Not-for-profit fund raising and social marketing. He is one of the 62 Senators at the University of Calgary where he sits on various committees. He also sits on Steering Committee for the Calgary Youth Science Fair and a founding member of Just-Vote – an organization aimed to promote the role of public in democratic process and importance of voting. He is member of Canadian Association for Management Consultants (CAMC), National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) and Canadian Association for Business Incubation (CABI).

Dr. Navneet Sharma

Dr. Navneet Sharma is working as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary (Alberta). He has over 20 years of experience working in biotech / pharmaceutical industry as well as academia after completing his Ph.D. in 1993. He has worked in the areas of process development, quality assurance, regulatory affairs as well as bio-manufacturing. In research he has contributed a lot by publishing research papers in the journals of international repute like PLoS One, Biological Chemistry, Vaccine and Molecular Reproduction & Development. Besides he has been involved in teaching business aspects and regulatory affairs to biomedical technology students. He has helped a lot of students in their research & business projects and has co-guided many. He volunteers a lot of his extra time to the activities of organizations such as Calgary Youth Science Fair (CYSF), Heart and Stroke Foundation and Sanofi BioGenius Challenge Canada (SBCC).