Team:Newcastle/Team

Vincent is amazing, he radiates positivity and he has a black belt at being good in everything from cooking delicious food to excellent lab skills. Also, Vincent is like a "Wikipedia of genetics", if anyone has a question about it, he is the person who will give great advice about it. In his free time Vincent gives brilliant piano lessons, and plays it beautifully himself, also dreams of being a GREAT king in the future. Furthermore, he has an amazing 30 pairs of shoes collection, which would be enough for 3 iGEM teams! Recently, during iGEM, Vincent become proud and loving father of Betty and Berty (the first L-forms he grew on a streak plate).

If you need help modelling, James is the guy you need to talk to. James is a second year Geneticist who hopes to work in bioinformatics in the future. This chirpy chappy has a passion for cooking and has treated certain iGEMers to his delectable risotto. When not working on iGEM or cooking fabulous food you will find James at the university squash courts with friends.

A trampolining, opera-watching, guitar-and-sometimes-piano-playing, dangerous-cyclling, wine-drinking, cheese-eating, gourmet chef – Yana also sometimes works on iGEM.

As one of the two computer scientists on the team, Matt has been vital to the design and production of our wiki. Matt has also cheerfully immersed himself in the labwork. Matts main computing interests are game design and bio-informatics. Outside academia, Matt enjoys playing and coaching basketball and is president of the University basketball club.

Vivian studies Pharmacology and is from Hong Kong. She’s a dedicated member of the team, often working late into the evening. As well as her competence with practical lab work, she is quietly confident in many aspects of the project such as navigating the wiki and having design input. Although first seen as a little shy, Vivian quickly came out of her shell, giving excellent advice and listening and responding to problems or concerns. In her spare time she enjoys playing the piano, eating out and enjoying a good cup of tea.

Studying in the first Synthetic Biology Masters in the country (alongside Rob), Chris completed a BSc in Biology at the University of Sheffield before moving to Newcastle. As one of the more experienced members of the team, Chris' extensive lab skills and resourcefulness have made him the first person other members turn to when an experiment goes wrong or a protocol needs adjusting. Found in the lab at weekends and late into the night, Chris' enthusiasm and maturity have enabled him to successfully juggle iGEM with the end of his Masters project. When not in the lab, Chris can be found playing or watching football, and is also something of a movie aficionado.

Justas is one of our computer scientists in the team and provides a lot of help with the computing and modelling parts of our project. Even though he doesn’t have much background in biology, he tries his best to help us all the time. Justas has a signature laugh which cheers everyone up after a long day. Throughout the day, he also likes to share haribos and cookies with everyone on the team to keep everyone full. If you see Justas really tired in the morning, it’s probably because he has been up at night playing poker. Justas suggested that our iGEM team be called Newcastle Mafia. This name was luckily voted out but he was devastated.

Alina is our only architect in the team but has thrown herself into the lab work with lots of enthusiasm. Her strengths are in her strong eye for design (as seen in the team logo), her straight talking attitude and supportive and friendly nature. She also enjoys hikes, cheese, wine, watching Miss Marple, cherry tea, trips to the cinema and photography.

Rob is one of the first two people in the UK to study Synthetic Biology and prior to this he studied Cellular and Molecular Biology. He has a love of travelling, having visited 22 countries so far where he has enjoyed a wide range of experiences, from climbing to Everest base camp, to sky diving in New Zealand. He is often sighted in blur form as he skates frantically everywhere possible and he goes snowboarding whenever the chance arises. He achieved distinction in grade 8 saxophone and above all else, has a full beard!

Izzy rhymes with cheesy and easy, but one couldn’t be more wrong here! She prefers cheese and wine to tea and cake, and we don’t blame her. She’s sweet enough to sugar a dozen cakes, while adding a bit of zest for the flavour!

Izzy’s the life of every party. Thanks to her no one can ever forget it’s Friday!

A softly spoken, contemplative chap, Geoff brings a more reflective quality to the team. his flexibility has allowed seamless movement between themes, with Geoff equally comfortable growing and experimenting on his plants or modelling the L-forms growing in them. A keen hiker, he is the vice-president of the university's fellwalking society.

I am the degree programme director for the MSc Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology at Newcastle University. My research interests are focussed on integrative bioinformatics, systems and synthetic biology. My group researches strategies for data integration in bioinformatics at various levels from the local integration of 'omics' datasets as probabilistic integrated functional networks, through to the integration of remote heterogeneous databases (ONDEX). My group are investigating approaches to facilitate an integrative and systems approach to biology, with a particular emphasis on ageing and nutrition, as part of the BBSRC/EPSRC funded Newcastle Centre for the Integrative and Systems Biology of Ageing and Nutrition (CISBAN). Methods for model annotation by data integration have been developed as part of the SAINT project. The group also researches and develops e-Science and Cloud computing technology to tackle problems in biological data analysis, simulation, and integration, and are interested in how the biological sciences can, in turn, drive developments in computing science. In particular, the group is developing technology for data integration, computational modelling and comparative genomics (e.g. Microbase). I also researches computational design strategies for Synthetic Biology, with a focus on the role of modelling and data integration in the design of biological systems. Laboratory facilities have been estalished in collaboration with the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology allowing computational designs to be tested in-vivo. The biological applications of his research are quite diverse ranging from microbiology and metagenomics, through to the mechanisms of human genetic disease and ageing. Traditionally the group has a strong interest and background in microbial genomics and functional genomics particularly for Gram-positive microorganisms such as Bacillus and relatives.

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of Computing Science at Newcastle University. My current research area is verification of biological and cyber-physical systems via model checking. I work with Anil Wipat and his group at the Center for Bacterial Cell Biology, in particular for verifying synthetic biology designs. Earlier, I worked with Edmund M. Clarke at Carnegie Mellon University, where I was the Technical Coordinator of CMACS. I am also interested in quantum and reversible programming languages, and formal methods for specifying and deriving code (a la Dijkstra) for quantum algorithms. For information visit: [http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/paolo.zuliani Dr. Paolo Zuliani].

I am a research associate based in our wet lab in the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology, Newcastle University. I studied Medical Microbiology at Newcastle University and my PhD was analysing functional genomics of group A streptococcal virulence factors. My initial research involved investigating the mechanisms of pathogenicity utilized by the Gram positive bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes. This experience equipped me with considerable expertise in the physiology/molecular biology of Gram-positive bacteria. I first encountered the concept of synthetic biology (at local seminars) in the context of a Gram-positive bacterium (Bacillus subtilis) and my interest stemmed initially from recognizing that this was a completely new and ‘exciting’ area, where I could make a valuable contribution exploiting my existing expertise. I have now extended my interests into the field of synthetic biology and am specifically researching into synthetic quorum peptide mediated communication systems in Bacillus subtilis.

I am a research associate based in our wet lab in the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology, Newcastle University. I studied Medical Microbiology at Newcastle University and my PhD was analysing functional genomics of group A streptococcal virulence factors. My initial research involved investigating the mechanisms of pathogenicity utilized by the Gram positive bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes. This experience equipped me with considerable expertise in the physiology/molecular biology of Gram-positive bacteria. I first encountered the concept of synthetic biology (at local seminars) in the context of a Gram-positive bacterium (Bacillus subtilis) and my interest stemmed initially from recognizing that this was a completely new and ‘exciting’ area, where I could make a valuable contribution exploiting my existing expertise. I have now extended my interests into the field of synthetic biology and am specifically researching into synthetic quorum peptide mediated communication systems in Bacillus subtilis.