Team:TU-Munich/Team/Members

Gruppenfoto

Our iGEM team consists of a interdisciplinary group of students and advisors from the subjects Biochemistry, Molecular Biotechnology, Engineering and Mathematics. The group was formed 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, who know each other from different activities, organized by the Technical University of Munich. To get in touch with each other, many tasks of team building were realized, for example visiting several folk festivals and going out for dinner. The results were a brilliant group dynamic and a fruitful relationship between the group members, so we were sure to have much fun and success at the iGEM competition in 2013.

After several team meetings, it was clear what the team was working at, because harming the environment seems to be one of the biggest problems in the world. Just imagine leaving the world worse behind us for following generations of human mankind. So we decided to develop a modular filter system to clean contaminated water, by adapting it to our needs, which is easy to handle and accessible for everyone in the world, cost-effective and in the end, with a maximum of efficiency.

The only chassis which complies with all these conceptions of us, was the eukaryote Physcomitrella patens. Physcomitrella patens is a moss which is resistant against nearly every natural phenomenon, on laboratory scale characterized and shows a short life cycle, which makes it very attractive for iGEM now and in the future competitions of iGEM.

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.

Andreas-David Brunner

• Master of QuikChange
• Field of Study: MBT
• Semester: Bachelor 4rd semester

Christopher Wolf

Field of Study: Mathematics (Cambridge University)

Semester: Bachelor 6th semester

Christopher is a mathematician, who studied at cambridge university, finishing his bachelor this summer with outstanding success. We expected him to be really good in programming and solving mathematical problems, but what happened was nearly unbelievable. He solved mathematical problems as fast as lightning, so we often had the feeling that he was underutilized with the problems we offered him. For him it is the first time working in a biochemical laboratory and participating at iGEM, but as the whole team could see, he was really interested and enthusiastic in the idea of working aside from the computer.

Dong-Jiunn Jeffery Truong

Codename: 24/7-Jeff

Field of Study: Molecular Biotechnology

Semester: Masters 4th 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 Science goes so far, that he can sleep 3 hours per night - one week long, if he needs to finish a sub-project of us. After getting in touch with the idea of iGEM, Jeffery was immediately infected by the idea of synthetic biology. He is very interested in Optogenetics and Signaling, too, which represent a very powerful combination translated to synthetic biology. In reference to these interests, our Safety Mechanism was developed by Jeff, which is a light inducible kill switch. Due to his enormous wisdom, he is one of the most uncomplicated and down-to-earth people we got acquainted with.

Florian Albrecht

Codename: Floh

Field of Study: Molecular Biotechnology

Semester: Bachelor 4rd semester

Motto: Coca Cola is my water!

It is the first time for him participating in iGEM. 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 of his versatility he was especially involved in programming our wiki and purifying proteins, if necessary the whole night long. One of his special characteristic 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: There's nothing we can't handle!

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. Further on it is the second time for him participating in iGEM. 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) 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. At least, I have to mention a hobby of Ingmar, which is called: “Destroy Falcon Tubes in an ultra-centrifuge at 47000g during a midi-prep and either try to extract the plasmid-pellet!”

Johanna Brueggenthies

Codename: The Gel-Penetrator

Field of Study: Biochemistry

Semester: Bachelor 4rd semester

It is the first time participating in iGEM for Johanna. She is an extremly motivated lab member, who is involved in nearly every single stage of the project. Johanna is the “Sunshine” of our labteam, who is easy to bring to laugh. As a consequence of this characteristic, just in the begining of our project, she sometimes penetrated gels during the loading process, when someone around was joking. Near to the end of our DNA work in the lab, Johanna was especially grouped to work on our wiki. While talking about her, it is to mention that she lives in Wolfratshausen, which is a small village at the terminal railway station of our city railway, in the south of Munich. Despite to the distance of around 51 miles, her time spent in the lab is above-average.

Katrin Fischer

Codename: Microwave-Katrin

Field of Study: Biochemistry

Semester: Bachelor 4rd semester

Former participation: TU_Munich 2012

The whole team is often asking themselves if Katrin possesses a 48 hours day, or if she is just working as fast as lightning, because besides iGEM she manages to hold a students job in a lab group and is successfully studying Biochemistry. It is her second time participating in 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 was 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 4rd semester

Motto: Come on!

Louise is one of our biochemistry students. During the application process of our iGEM Team, she was able to score with her lab experience she earned during a voluntary internship at the biochemistry faculty at Cambridge University. In the lab, she stays always focused on her work, although we sometimes try to neck her while she tries to prepare the thousandth DNA sequencing tube. In the experimental part of our project, Louise was mainly responsible for developing, preparing and analyzing the toxicity assay, which shows the behavior of the moss at different concentrations of possible contaminants and substrates.

Philipp Schneider

Field of Study: Engineering

Semester: Bachelor 6th semester

iGEM-Motto: Desoxyribo....what?!

Phillip is an Engineering student, who finishes his bachelor thesis this summer. He is very interested in synthetic biology, although it is sometimes hard for him to follow our conversations about gene design and other stuff during our team meetings. As an engineer he is always mentioning new aspects which are integrated in our project. His Main task is to build and to program a gadget which you can use for observing different conditions of our moss filter and to fit them.

Rosario Ciccone

Codename: Eagle Eye

Field of Study: Biochemistry

Semester: Bachelor 4rd semester

Motto: Today, i need a beer! (Nearly always said at 9:00 o' clock in the morning)

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.

Leonie Reichart

Codename: Lab-Mom

Field of Study: Molecular Biotechnology

Semester: Bachelor 2rd Semester

Despite to her career at university, which is just running two terms, she is able to rely on her work experience as a lab technician. Leonie is a very ambitious and scrupulous person which often manifests itself through her "mother-like" behavior in the lab. The first thing she is doing every day after entering the lab is to tidy up every lab bench and to sterilize them with one hundred liters of Isopropanol! Every bachelor and master student of us was able to learn from her referring to precise lab techniques. This is the reason why she introduced the bachelor students to every single step working with DNA and cell culture techniques. Due to her lab skills, Leonie is a very friendly, open-minded person, who is always in a catchy good-mood.

Volker Morath

Codename: Molker Morath

Position: PhD student at the chair of Biological Chemistry TUM WZW

Field of Study: Biology (graduated)

Former Participation: Freiburg 2010 TU_Munich 2012.

Volker is one of our Instructors. First, one has to say that he is writing his PhD thesis at the Skerra lab, spending nearly one third of his official PhD thesis time in iGEM. It is the third time for him participating in iGEM, so he has a vulnerable treasure trove of experience we can fall back on. During his studies of Biology in Freiburg, he was able to establish many contacts to Professors, for example to Professor Reski, who is supporting us in a fantastic way concerning the moss Physcomitrella patens.

Fabian Fröhlich

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 is our Team-leader. The reasons why he was chosen to hold this position in the team are not only his irresistible charisma, authority and analytical way of thinking he earned during his mathematical studies, but also his calmness and ability to solve stand-off situations. His tasks outside of science include organizing flights to the jamborees, team meetings, accommodations and inspiring sponsors for our trend-setting project. As you can see, Fabian is an outstanding personality who is essential for the whole team.

Dr. Meike Meißner

Position: Coordinator of the 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. She is involved in attracting and contacting sponsors for our team, so we can handle the emerging costs during our project. Due to her organizing skills, she possesses a sense for inconsistencies in the team, which she always approaches and solves.

Prof. Dr. Ralf Reski

to be edited deutscher Professor für Pflanzenbiotechnologie und ehemaliger Dekan der Fakultät für Biologie der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.untersucht Genetik, Proteine, Stoffwechsel und Besonderheiten in der Zellentwicklung von Moosen und nutzt dabei die sehr effiziente Homologe Rekombination zur Herstellung von Knockout-Moosen. International Moss Stock Center (IMSC) eine Biobank, die Moospflanzen aus aller Welt lagert und verteilt. unbekannte Gene und ihre Funktion für die Land- und Forstwirtschaft. Aber auch die Herstellungen komplexer Biopharmazeutika im Moosbioreaktor, dem sogenannt Molecular Pharming Mitgründer des Biotechnologieunternehmens greenovation Biotech GmbH

Dr. Gertrud Wiedemann

Dr. Gertrud Wiedemann kindly took the time and patience to teach us the protoplast transformation method at the Reski lab. She supervised both our trafo sessions and advised us on procedure details.

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.