Team:Paris Bettencourt/Team

I obtained my Bsc in Biochemistry at the University of Birmingham, UK. I am deeply interested in biomedical studies and medicine. During the AIV’s first year master programme, I was afforded the opportunity to study synthetic, computational and systems biology. This allowed me to discover that new approaches in medicine can be taken using the principles of synthetic and systems biology. Such approaches are evident in our iGEM project, which I am very excited to be a part of. Using synthetic biology, we are trying to address an age old medical problem in an innovative yet plausible way.

I'm doing a Bachelor in biology in Serbia, and I came to Paris to do my summer internship in iGEM. In Serbia I work as an advisor in Petnica Science Center. There we are going to form a new iGEM team next year, so all the experiences from this internship will be very helpful. In Petnica I did several projects in microbiology, mostly regarding bioremediation technologies. I didn't have much chance to do any molecular or cellular biology, so I'm highly interested in learning new methods in this field. I also enjoy doing street art and martial arts.

What I love in Synthetic Biology is that we can be creative in Sciences and not only in Arts. iGEM project should be the dream of every undergraduate student who wants to become a researcher: create our own project, work with a brilliant team and have a lot of fun! I am also volunteer at “Médecins du monde” (Doctor’s of the World) where I make Thin-layer Chromatography to analyse drugs. I like dancing, theater, playing guitar, reading and diving to admire the beauty of the ocean!

I’m currently doing a bachelor in biology, chemistry and physics at the Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire de Paris. I’m new in the research world but extremely motivated to learn and to succeed. I am very interested in the interdisciplinarity of biology, especially in genetics and synthetic biology which are likely to be a really huge field in science soon, as it’s beginning to grow fast. I enjoy doing challenging experiences as much as work in team and I’m sure that IGEM will be a great one.

I am a 22 years old recently graduated product designer. While I was studying applied arts, I became deeply interested in Biology and harnessed my designer's energy to seek/assess the potential of an exciting upcoming field: Bio-design. Whilst investigating the friction of design with Biology, I discovered Synthetic Biology. I became instantly amazed by its potential in real life implication and the role that design could have in this technology. Naturally, I then wanted to acquire actual wet lab experience in Synthetic Biology, enabling me to explore how designers can work with scientists and what are their roles, missions, interest would be. I believe iGEM is the best place for this investigation!

I am currently completing an engineering degree in life sciences by studying interdisciplinary research at the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires. My scientific interests and previous research experience revolves around evolution, genetics architecture, genomics and of course synthetic biology. In parraleĺ of those scientific topics, I have been studying and working in the field of public policies, especially agricultural and food ones. I got the chance of working on those very different subjects in various environnements by living in Paris, Berlin, Washington and Shanghai. Outside my work, I am involved in different associations, mostly around science outreach. This year, I founded an association called WAX Science which tackles inequalities, especially gender inequalities in science.

Philosopher by training, I have always had a keen interest for the life sciences. I’m therefore supplementing my philosophy and humanities background by attending the master Approches Interdisciplinaires du Vivant (Interdisciplinary Approaches to Life sciences) at the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires. This thoroughly challenging, yet highly rewarding experience is allowing me to get acquainted with the basics of systems and synthetic biology. I am therefore very excited to participate to the IGEM competition, which I see as a chance to address cutting-edge questions at the crossroad between next-century biology and old wise philosophy. Besides that, my main interests are “all things human”, from high abstract ideals to the most earthly things.

I obtained my BSc. in Cellular, Molecular and Microbiology at the University of Calgary, Canada. Afterwhich I worked as a research associate at the University of Leicester, UK working on genome and population dynamics in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. I am very interested in bridging approaches and techniques from various fields to tackle complex problems in biology. I am a highly problem motivated scientist and enjoy experimental design, as such I am excited at the prospect to take part in this years iGEM competition. The iGEM competition is the ideal place to branch out into exciting new fields, enhance and broaden our skill set and showcase our talent and ideas in an international setting.

I did a bachelor on Biology at Universidad de Chile, Chile. From there I worked for two years and a half as a research associate. Two years at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (WA, USA) doing bioinformatics and proteomics; and 6 months at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) working in rule-based modelling. Since last year I am a student the AIV master program in Paris. My interests are focused on theoretical approaches to study biochemical networks. Sinthetic Biology is exiting to me for two main reasons: there is a need for precise abstractions in order to design modular synthetic constructs, and while creating new biochemical systems you learn about the limits of biological systems. In my freetime I like cooking, and dancing.

I am from Germany and biologist by training. Synthetic Biology is a very interdisciplinary and emerging field in Science. It offers many possibilities for the future. The iGEM competition is a main driving force for the visions of Synthetic Biology. I like the creativity, group work, interaction and exchanges about Science that are part of the competition process. As the CRI is a place for visions and future project, I am really looking forward to work with the team on a visionary project that will further form Synthetic Biology.

I started learning pharmacy at Strasbourg University to become a researcher and as I was specializing in therapeutic innovation based on biotechnology I heard about synthetic biology. I became more and more convinced that this young field had a huge potential for fighting human diseases and I eventually came to Paris to study it intensively through internships in laboratories and through the AIV master. By doing iGEM I hope to have the chance to show creativity in applying the concepts I have learnt so far and to take advantage of the exciting working context of a truly interdisciplinary and multinational team.

I am biologist from Germany and I am now in the AIV Master. Since I heard the first time of Synthetic Biology and iGEM, I wanted to participate in this challenging competition. I think the iGEM Team at the CRI is a great group as it has lots of potential as we are a group of students from many different backgrounds and nationalities. As Synthetic Biology is aswell very interdisciplinary I am looking forward to work on an exciting project with the team and learn more about science and the emerging field of Synthetic Biology.

I have a bachelor in biomedical sciences and I like to explore the interface between different disciplines, and that is why I enrolled in the master. I also got the chance to follow synthetic and computational biology in the AIV track at the CRI, which made me discover what an amazing field synthetic biology is! One of my goals is to try to adress the bottleneck of therapies through synthetic biology tools. But I am also interested in exploring new perspectives that sythetic biology allowed us to open. I am looking forward for the iGEM teamwork, because I am sure we are going to have a very exciting experiment, on both the scientific and the human level!

I come from sunny Tel Aviv, Israel. I Have a B.Sc in Biotechnology. I spent my first year of master learning the fields of system's biology and synthetic biology. I Love the creativity that Synthetic biology brought to this field and I appreciate the opportunity for free thinking. I like the competitive nature of iGEM and I think it will help us produce a beautiful project.

INSERM tenured senior researcher and co-director of the AIV master, has graduated from the Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel) "Amirim" interdisciplinary program with major in Chemistry and received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel) in Chemical Immunology for his work on catalytic antibodies as enzyme models, antibody conformational changes and directed evolution. After a research period at the Scripps Institute (California, USA), he received EMBO and Marie Curie fellowships to pursue postdoctoral work in Paris. His study interest evolve around applying Physical, Chemical and Biological approaches to study variability between clonal individuals. He is an associate professor at the Paris Descartes university faculty of Medicine (2008/9) and serves as the director of studies of the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI).

I am a second year student in the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Life Sciences (AIV) Master program at Paris Descartes University. I studied Molecular Biology at University of Zagreb (Croatia) and did a semester long exchange at Uppsala University (Sweden) where I studied Microbial and Evolutionary Genetics and Bioinformatics. I spent almost whole last year working on application of synthetic biology in fundamental research and participating in iGEM as a part of the Paris Bettencourt team on a highly noticed and successful project. My primary scientific interest is application of synthetic biology for creating bioproducts as well as using synthetic biology in fundamental research. Also, I’m quite interested in developing synthetic biology as a tool for creating living organisms from scratch as we build many non-living constructs today. I joined iGEM team again this year because I had a lot of fun last year and because it is a unique research opportunity that only rare get to experience.

I’m a first year PhD student from the Frontières du Vivant PhD school and CEA, working on the dynamical behavior of chromatin. I understood the potential of synthetic biology when I participated in iGEM 2011 as a team member, during this experience I learnt a lot about research, and more specifically I understood how to design a good research project. This year I participate in iGEM as an advisor, in order to share my passion for science and to try to make our participation in iGEM a success.

I’m a postdoc at the CRI and I teach the Synthetic Biology course for first-year master’s students. I did my Ph.D. in Pam Silver’s lab in the Harvard Systems Biology department. My research interests include aging, evolution, metabolism and of course Synthetic Biology. This will be my second year as an iGEM advisor and I expect very good science from this team!