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Revision as of 20:26, 4 October 2013
The TU-Munich iGEM team 2013
This year's iGEM team is a quite interdisciplinary group consisting of students and advisors from the subjects Biochemistry, Molecular Biotechnology, Engineering and Mathematics. The forming of the team was initiated by three students and two instructors who already participated in last year´s iGEM competition and who were looking for enthusiastic fellow campaigners to participate in iGEM 2013. The result was a team, consisting of 10 students and 3 instructors, willing to participate in a great contribution to the competition. To bridge the gap between old and new team members, we visited several folk festivals (luckily we're quite blessed with them in the greater Munich area) and had dinner together. The results were a brilliant group dynamic and a fruitful relationship between the group members, thus a very enjoyable and hopefully equally successful in participation in the iGEM competition was ensured right away.
We are very lucky and deeply grateful to have the chance to work in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Arne Skerra, who holds the chair of biological chemistry at the Technical University of Munich. The whole team has full accessibility to all laboratory equipment, which is needed to realize the project as good as possible, because Prof. Dr. Arne Skerra and his Team are supporting us in an amazing way.
Student Members
Andreas-David Brunner
Codename:
Master of QuikChange
Field of Study:
Molecular Biotechnology
Semester:
Bachelor 4th Semester
What kind of character do you need to get a “master” grade in the 4th bachelor's semester? Due to his amount of perfect processed Quikchanges, with his diligence and inexorable endurance, Andi really deserved his codename as “Master of Quickchange”. For advancing our project in different fields, including establishing and maintaining the contact between different iGEM Teams, Andi is one of our connecting persons who travelled for example through four cities within 3 days. Next to this, Andi is a very cooperative, high flying and humorous character. In the end of our project his power was mainly invested in the preparation, execution and planning of the Educational-Kits and performing the experiment to proof the existence of cut-off membrane constructs.
Christopher Wolf
Codename:
Wolverine
Field of Study:
Mathematics
(Cambridge University)
Semester:
Bachelor 6th semester
Christopher just recently finished his Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge this summer. In the team he mainly took care of modeling and programming tasks, but beyond that he also showed a genuine interest in the work in the lab. This enabled him to make even more essential contributions to the project as he was able to solve biological problems as well as disputes in the team from his mathematical perspective.
Dong-Jiunn Jeffery Truong
Codename:
24/7-Jeff
Field of Study:
Molecular Biotechnology
Semester:
Master 3rd semester
Former participation in:
TU_Munich 2012
Motto:
The happier we get,
the less we see.
If I would just have three words to describe Jeff, these words would be: What a Gen(e)ious!!! There is nobody in the team who can mess with him on DNA-Level. His enthusiasm for the project goes so far, that he can sleep 3 hours per night – one week straight, when there is urgent work to be done. After getting in touch with the idea of iGEM, Jeffery was immediately infected by the idea of synthetic biology. He has a keen interest in optogenetics and signaling, which made him the perfect fit to work on our safety mechanism. Besides to his enormous wisdom, he is one of the most uncomplicated and down-to-earth people we ever got acquainted with.
Florian Albrecht
Codename:
Floh
Field of Study:
Molecular Biotechnology
Semester:
Bachelor 4th semester
Motto:
Coca Cola is my water!
His extraordinary skills in nearly every situation enrich the team enormously. Lab, programing and mechanical skills are just some to mention. Florian is a reflective person, who is just talking as much as needed, nevertheless he is always up for a funny claim. As a consequence to his versatility he was especially involved in programming our wiki, building of filter prototypes and purifying proteins, if necessary the whole night long. One of his special characteristics is his coca cola consumption, true to the motto: “Coca Cola is my water!”
Ingmar Polte
Codename:
47000 xg -Polte
Field of Study:
Molecular Biotechnology
Semester:
Bachelor 6th semester
Motto:
We need more rpm!!!
Former participation:
TU_Munich 2012
At first glance Ingmar seems to be wrong in the laboratory, because you can easily mix him up with a manager of a joint-stock company, but at second glance you recognize him being the “Usain Bolt” of the laboratory. There is nothing which can not be managed and organized by him until time is used optimally, even if he is forced to run between the photo laboratory (first floor) checking a result of a gel electrophoresis and heat-shocking bacteria of a transformation (ground floor) in parallel. Ingmar is always motivated, helping in every situation as good as he can and managed to finish his bachelors thesis in Bioprocess Engineering besides iGEM. Last but definitely not least, we have to mention a hobby of Ingmar, which is called: “Destroy Falcon Tubes in an ultra-centrifuge at 47000 xg during a midi-prep and still try to extract the plasmid-pellet!”
Johanna Brueggenthies
Codename:
The Gel-Penetrator
Field of Study:
Biochemistry
Semester:
Bachelor 4th semester
Johanna is the “Sunshine” of our labteam, who always has a positive attitude, spreads good feelings in the lab and is always ready for a laugh. Although this is in general a very well-received characteristic of her, in the begining of our project, she sometimes penetrated gels during the loading process, when someone around was joking, which yielded her her code name. Near to the end of our DNA work in the lab, Johanna ardently worked on writing articles for the wiki which was a great contribution to the project and really helped us finishing the wiki in a timely fashion.
Katrin Fischer
Codename:
Microwave-Katrin
Field of Study:
Biochemistry
Semester:
Bachelor 4th semester
Former participation:
TU_Munich 2012
There is the rumor that Katrin snatched Hermiones Time-Turner, as she manages to hold a students job in a lab group and is successfully studying Biochemistry while working hard for iGEM. Katrin is a very focused and thoughtful person, who has the right ideas at the right time. If you got the chance to admire our team poster at the „Biotechnology 2020+ Conference of the Ministry of Research and Education“ in Berlin, you were admiring the work of Katrin. Her skills in using graphic applications are superlative and were mixed up with the work of a trained illustrator. Her lab skills and graphics experience really pushes the team to new boundaries.
Louise Funke
Codename:
Dances with Wolves
Field of Study:
Biochemistry
Semester:
Bachelor 4th semester
Motto:
Come on!
Although Louise is only in her 4th semester, with the lab experience she earned during a voluntary internship at the Biochemistry faculty at Cambridge University, she is able to work independently and with great efficiency. With her precise lab work and incredible dedication she propels our project forward, keeping track of any loose ends. When experiments failed, she always cheered the team up with her infectious smile and reminded us to keep the big picture in mind.
Philipp Schneider
Codename:
Phil-no-Mitrella
Field of Study:
Engineering
Semester:
Bachelor 6th semester
iGEM-Motto:
Desoxyri....whaat?!
Philipp is an Engineering student, who finishes his bachelor thesis this winter. Although he virtually had no real contact with the subject, he showed great interest in synthetic biology. Sometimes it was hard for him to follow our conversations about gene design and protein interactions, but he was a quick learner and in turn he could teach us a lot about engineering principles we did not know about!
Rosario Ciccone
Codename:
Eagle Eye
Field of Study:
Biochemistry
Semester:
Bachelor 4th semester
Motto:
Pew, pew, pew!
Rosario is a very friendly and helpful person, who mini-prepped more bacteria than the whole team together during iGEM. It is the first time for him participating in this competition and working on a project independently besides university. As you may mention referring to his name, Rosario is half italian, half german, but representing the real italian spirit, gesticulating and talking loudly if he is upset or enthusiastic about a new idea. His laugh is absolutely intoxicating, which is always creating an enjoyable atmosphere. Towards the end of the project, Rosario was mainly occupied with the purification of our effector proteins, to be sure that we are performing our experiments and characterizations with noncontaminated protein.
Principal Investigator
Prof. Dr. Arne Skerra
Chair: Biological Chemistry TUM WZW
Since 1998 Prof. Dr. Arne Skerra is Full Professor at the [http://www.tum.de Technische Universität München], where he heads the [http://www.lrz.de/~Biologische-Chemie/index.html Institute of Biological Chemistry]. He is internationally renowned for his comprehensive experience and his pioneering contributions in the fields of molecular biotechnology and protein engineering.
In addition to his scientific excellence he strives to apply and economically utilize academic results, and to date he founded two start-ups. He advises our iGEM team scientifically and offers laboratory places at his chair.
Instructors
Leonie Reichart
Codename: Lab-Mom
Field of Study: Molecular Biotechnology
Semester: Bachelor 2nd Semester, trained Technical Assistant
Leonie is a very ambitious and scrupulous person which often manifests itself through her "mother-like" behavior in the lab. Before starting her career at university, she worked as lab technician for several years and was able to teach us a lot, relying on her years of experience. Every single one of us was able to learn from her precise lab techniques and she introduced the bachelor students to every step of working with DNA and cell cultures.
Volker Morath
Codename:
Position: PhD student at the chair of Biological Chemistry TUM WZW
Field of Study: Biology (graduated)
Former Participation: Freiburg 2010 TU_Munich 2012.
After participating two times in iGEM, once in Freiburg, once in Munich, Volker is now supervising this years iGEM team. From his previous participation he gathered a venerable treasure trove of experience we could fall back on.
Fabian Fröhlich
Codename: Alfred J. Kwak
Position: PhD student at the Institute of Computational Biology at the Helmholtzzentrum Munich
Field of study: Mathematics in Bioscience (graduated)
Former Participation: TU_Munich 2011 TU_Munich 2012
Fabian also already participated two times in the iGEM competition and is supervising the team this year. Besides supervising the modeling work, he always assisted us in team meetings with his authority, analytical way of thinking and ability to solve stand-off situations.
Advisors
Dr. Meike Meißner
Position: Coordinator of the degree course Molecular Biotechnology at TU Munich, Weihenstephan
Field of Study: Biology (graduated)
Meike is the coordinator of the degree course „Molecular Biotechnology“ at the Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan (WZW) of the Technical University of Munich and supports us during iGEM as much as she can. Due to her position as contact person for the degree course, she had a good sense for infighting in the team, which she always approached and solved.
Prof. Dr. Ralf Reski
Prof. Dr. Reski is a german professor for plant biotechnology and former dean of the biology faculty at Albert-Ludwig University, Freiburg. His research of genetics, proteins, metabolism and peculiarities of moss cell development uses the highly efficient homologous recombination for the production of knockout moss in order to investigate unknown genes and their functions with a prospect on potential applications in agriculture and forestry. Prof. Reski´s research also includes the production of complex biopharmaceuticals in moss bioreactors (molecular farming) and he co-founded the Greenovation Biotech GmbH. He also created the International Moss Stock Center (IMSC), a biobank that stores and distributes moss plants from all around the world.
Dr. Gertrud Wiedemann
Dr. Gertrud Wiedemann is a postdoc at the Reski plant biotechnology lab. She kindly took the time and patience to teach us the protoplast transformation method, supervised both our transformation sessions and advised us on procedure details.
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