Team:TU-Munich/Team/Members

Gruppenfoto

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.

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.

Leonie Reichart

Codename: Lab-Mom

Field of Study: Molecular Biotechnology

Semester: Bachelor 2rd Semester

Despite her career at university, 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. 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. Apart from her lab skills, Leonie is also a very friendly, open-minded person, always in an infectious good mood and happy to help.

Volker Morath

Codename: Molker Votorrad

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

Field of Study: Biology (graduated)

Former Participation: Freiburg 2010 TU_Munich 2012.

It is the third time for him participating in iGEM, so he has a venerable 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 Prof. Reski, who is supporting us fantastically in our work with the moss Physcomitrella patens.

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 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. Besides supervising the modeling work he also organized flights to the jamborees, team meetings and accommodations. 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 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 infighting 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.