James Strutt

Discipline: Biology

Code name: Lord Tywin, of House Lannister.

James finished his undergraduate degree 1 week prior to iGEM starting. He has been instrumental in realising our living artwork with E. coli. In addition to this he has done at least 50 separate growth assays to effectively characterise our biobrick growth and maintained a steady rate of media preparation to ensure all experiments were feasible on their planned day. He introduced the team to the light sabre app, which was greatly appreciated by his team mates.

Completed:

• Growth assays for all our new and existing biobricks
• Fluorescence assays for those biobricks containing GFP
• Prepared and designed new media for our project, including minimal media
• Transformed and cloned biobricks
• Painted the BioNouveau artwork
• Implemented design of a 3D model of our futuristic MAPLE bin, which was then 3D printed
• Initiated talks with Yale about a collaboration

Jemma Pilcher

Discipline: Biochemistry

Code name: HRH Jurassic Pilch, Mother of Dinosaurs, Second of her Name, Admiral of the Calamarian Fleet

Jemma is the one and only biochemist on the team. Her awarded nickname Jurassic Pilch soon grew to a long and illustrious title, inspired by nerd activity. She finds Synthetic Biology "so exciting", as it brings together her passion for science and creativity. Also known as the Enzyme Queen, Jemma was in charged of protein purification and activity assays. Her main hobbies are fencing, ballroom/latin dancing and painting.

Completed:

• Prepared and ran our kinetic assays
• Purification of our proteins
• Transformed and cloned biobricks
• Explained our project on BBC radio4
• Spent extensive time gaining media coverage and knowledge of our project

Iain Bower

Discipline: Biology

Code name: King in the North, Captain Plates

Iain is a devious, intelligent denizen of the North, beyond the Wall of London. He has been involved in the creation of a brand new optimised protocol for plastic purification from bacterial cells. Without his input, we would not have been able to show that our cells had synthesised the plastic from waste. As his code name suggests, he was in charge of producing our plates used for clearing assays. He was briefly nominated leader whereby he received his title, King in the North, which we affectionately shorten to KITN. He is an avid dancer in his free time.

Completed:

• Prepared clearing plates with plastic emulsions
• Adapted an existing method for purification of P3HB from cells
• Transformed and cloned biobricks

Margarita Kopniczky

Discipline: Biology

Code name: Marg, Son of Gloin

Margarita has been our clone master throughout the project. She was heavily involved in producing our hybrid plastic synthesis construct, which has proved to be an amazing biobrick. Thanks to her initial experimentation with our blue pigmented bacteria, she was able to pave the way for the great art masterpieces that were subsequently produced. Similarly to other team members, she has accrued a code name, which has raised her to the status of Tolkein Lore. Her passions include hiking and photography.

Completed:

• Synthesised the lion's share of our new biobricks
• Designed primers to test our biobricks as well as to engineer all new ones
• Modified an existing 3HB kit for use in our project
• Investigated a means of filtering off 3HB using membranes

Matthew Ho Wai Chin

Discipline: Biomedical Engineering

Code name: Chewbacca the "OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

Matthew has a passion for engineering - notably the modelling side, which over the course of iGEM he has come to really enjoy. He has been especially helpful in designing a very useful model to aid in the construction of the team's biobricks. As hinted by his code name, he is very talented in impersonating wookies, and may yet be offered a place on the new Star Wars films by J. J. Abrams. He is a keen photographer and enjoys visiting the Gym when it isn't overcrowded.

• Produced a functional model for P3HB synthesis
• Predicted the limiting factor in P3HB synthesis

Sisi Fan

Discipline: Biology

Code name: Mother Of Mooncakes, 99th Empress of the Moon

Sisi has completed her undergraduate studies at Imperial. She has a passion for bioinformatics and synthetic biology. Her work has primarily focused on western blotting our biobricks. She was very keen to put together an industrial plan for the project. As her code name suggests, she is very fond of moon cakes, especially snowskin red bean ones.

• Undertook a 3HB and P3HB toxicity assay on bdh2 without PelB
• Contacted Tian an - the largest bioplastic company in China, who said our product was innovative
• Got ESTCS2 in 3HB for toxicity data
• Waste and 3% glucose growth curve and 3HB as sole carbon source

Bobby Wenqiang Chi

Discipline: Biomedical Engineering

Code name: The Real Bobby

Bobby is one of our bioengineers. He has co-ordinated with Matthew to optimise the existing P3HB model in order to add a metabolic component to it. In addition he designed the degradation modules for both PUR and PLA. He doesn't always show his real face on the team page but when he does it is always shown on every other team's page who are still using the default image. He is very fond of fine cuisine.

• Produced a functional metabolic model that fed into our existing P3HB synthesis model
• Produced a PUR and PLA degradation model/li>