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Meet our team!

ID:: Bart Deplancke
Cell line:: Belgian
Differentiation:: EPFL iGEM big boss
Specific functions:: Alternatively pressure applier and optimism provider with occasional trolling.
Productivity increased by:: Controls controls controls !
Greatest ambition in life:: More cloning schemes!
Special features:: Founder of the school of "quick and dirty ligations followed by 100 colony PCRs".

ID:: Sebastian Maerkl
Cell line:: German
Differentiation:: EPFL iGEM big boss
Specific functions:: Help desperate iGEMers in need and allow us to spend money for our surprise at Amsterdam!
Productivity increased by:: The percentage beer his grad students (i.e. Matt) owe him
Greatest ambition in life:: Collect ALL the iGEM trophies/medals and have his lab covered in iGEM stickers and random goodies.
Special features:: Replaced his old 2009 iGEM hoodie with a new one!

ID:: Sowmya Balasubramanian
Cell line:: India(H-) - Special strain with height gene knocked off
Differentiation:: PhD student in Biotechnology and Bioengineering (Wurm Lab)
Specific functions:: Teach us the art of mammalian cell culture
Productivity increased by:: "Graphs are good, I like graphs! They make me want to work more" ...and Indian street food....and chocolate.....and cakes......
Greatest ambition in life:: Get a paid flight to Boston.
Special features:: Master of the falcon tube swirl.

ID:: Matthew Blackburn
Cell line:: American
Differentiation:: PhD student in Biotechnology and Bioengineering (Maerkl Lab)
Specific functions:: Teaching us sorcery like PCR, spend tons of money for us.
Productivity increased by:: Beer drinking, coffee, cycling
Greatest ambition in life:: Go on an adventure in the underground dungeons of the MIT with us
Special features:: "Don't kill yourselves! But if you do, call 911."

ID:: Pascal Damian Odermatt
Cell line:: Swiss
Differentiation:: PhD student in Biotechnology and Bioengineering (Fantner Lab)
Specific functions:: Teach us a ghetto way to load a gel
Productivity increased by:: C8H10N4O2 (central nervous stimulant)
Greatest ambition in life:: Developing an artificial caffeine releasing organ
Special features:: "He's the other Matt (Odermatt)" (Diego)

ID:: Mouna Cerra Cheraka
Cell line:: F1 generation of a monohybrid Swiss x Algerian cross
Differentiation:: Bioengineering
Specific functions:: Provider of all sorts of silliness for the wiki, resident artist, PCR adept.
Productivity increased by:: Increasing coffee intake beyond vital dosis (i.e. > 5 cups/day)
Greatest ambitions in life:: Invent time traveling, regeneration and owning a pet dragon
Special features:: Honorary metal viking, which probably explains the bleached out Algerian phenotype...

ID:: Alexandra Iouranova
Cell line:: Swiss, I swear! (Actually, 100% Russian in disguise)
Differentiation:: Bioengineering
Specific functions:: Drew the arrow that sticks on our wiki menu.
Productivity increased by:: The smell of LB on agar plates. This might be an addiction, don't tell anyone.
Greatest ambition in life:: Being able to clone herself, several times, just in case. The clones would instantly kill each other, though.
Special features:: Who needs sleep anyway.

ID:: Sander Kromwijk
Cell line:: Dutch
Differentiation:: Computer Sciences
Specific functions:: Cultivating mammalian cells, styling the Wiki, that kind of stuff.
Productivity increased by:: Software patch for prefrontal lobe
Greatest ambition in life:: Perform all lab work behind a computer (robots!), but still keep lab coats on. Lab coats are cool.
Special features:: Can build a computer from sticks and mud.

ID:: Juneseung Lee
Cell line:: Korea
Differentiation:: Neuroscience!
Specific functions:: Making stupid face while listening to French speakers
Productivity increased by:: Good results
Greatest ambition in life:: Developing mechanical and artificial human brain.
Special features:: Je ne comprends pas le français, mais je l'aime!

ID:: Diego Marcos
Cell line:: Español
Differentiation:: Engineer differentiated in Mathematics currently doing synthetic biology
Specific functions:: Read all the papers and model everything
Productivity increased by:: Asking ALL the questions!
Greatest ambition in life:: Make a model of a sandwich so accurate, you can eat it.
Special features:: Matlab guru

ID:: Shreya Narasimhan
Cell line:: 100% Swiss and 100% Indian!
Differentiation:: Life Sciences
Specific functions:: Keep track of time and guess which cells farted.. Indian style- Western - blot guru to be and FACS screenshot fabuloso
Productivity increased by:: Laughing, Sleeping and eating instant noodles
Greatest ambition in life:: Creating a robot master of cloning and then command it with her mind. Wouldn't mind creating an automatic programmable western blot machine either...
Special features:: Better at stirring up some DNA than some food!!!