The team won a gold medal and was nominated for "Best education and public engagement" for their project
The Synthesizer
The aim of the DTU iGEM 2015 project was to create a standardized method to rationally design the synthesis of novel biologically active compounds, potentially revolutionizing the production of products such as pigments, antibiotics and immunosuppressant drugs that can be used in industry and medicine.
This system required the team to develop a modular synthetic biology toolbox. This type of synthetic biology toolbox can produce a broad variety of compounds. It can supply a new generation of antibiotics and a means to synthesize them. This could become an important aspect in fighting the antibiotic multi-resistance of pathogens. Additionally, it can support antibiotic delivery to specific bacterial targets.
Read much more about their project on the iGEM website.
The Team
Members
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Tobias Løgren Madsen, MSc Pharmaceutical Design and Engineering (2nd year)
Tobias is a life-saver for most of the team members. He kept track of the fundraising, organises our social events, and designed our board to keep track of ongoing activites in the lab and on the project. Tobias also has the fantastic ability to always be happy and bring beers to event. When he went to China for month to study public communications, there was no Friday beer. Besides all the organisational work, Tobias studies Pharmacutical Design and Engineering, where he focusses on entrepenuership and project development.
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Viktor Hesselberg-Thomsen, BSc Biotechnology (1st year)
Viktor is not like most freshmen's in college. He has already won a young research competition, and on the DTU iGEM team 2015 he has been working hard mastering new methods in the laboratory from the first day. Viktor has done a lot of the lab work; and he was the first to succeed in the team at making our chassis Bacillus competent. Outside the lab, Viktor plays in a jazz band and then he would like to specialise in algae research. |
Karolina Kalbarczyk, MSc Pharmaceutical Design and Engineering (2nd year)
Having a wide range of interests, being on the iGEM team was a perfect opportunity for Karolina to combine some of her passions like her interest in synthetic biology, innovative start-ups and sharing knowledge in an international team. Originally from Poland, she has already a lot of international experience, having studied in Germany, England and now Denmark. Karolina was not only actively involved in our human practice activities, but also holds the record for the highest DNA concentrations in miniprepping and successful Gibson assembling. She was also in charge of lab-on-a-disc concept. |
Vilhelm Krarup Møller, BSc Biotechnology (2nd year)
Vilhelm is among the team members who have spent most of the time in the lab –he even brought his private coffee cup to university in summer. He always came up with new ideas to pursue as part of our Human Practice strategy and always knew what to discuss at our next meeting. Furthermore, he has contributed in the long process of making us an official Blue Dot project at DTU. He is planning to specialize in the field of bioinformatics and wants to do his thesis at the Center of Biological Sequence Analysis at DTU. When he takes a break from working on iGEM, he enjoys running and some more science. |
Linas Kaminskas, MSc Computer Science and Engineering (2nd year)
Linas joined the team for a period to develop a NRPS oligo designer tool for recombineering. Unfortunately, the tool did not end up functioning.
He is the only non-biologically related student in our iGEM team.
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Pernille Myers, MSc Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, honors (1st year)
Project leader/developer
Pernille has been the driving force and molecular biology expert behind the Synthesizer project. She has kept the team organized and on track in the laboratory with more than 4 years of work experience in industrial biotechnology. She has been constantly answering questions regarding the theory and practical knowledge from the bachelor and master's students alike. As a part of Biotech Academy at DTU she is in charge of our Human Practice Strategy and laboratory project for high school students. When Pernille is not in the lab...(very funny, she is always in the lab). She fancies jogging and travelling. Her most memorable trip was living in California, where she did research for a biotech company, or perhaps when she was invited to the Noble Prize Award Ceremony because of her project on brown bananas. |
Scott Myers, MSc Biotechnology (2nd year)
Scott is the team's protein chemist and the most exotic member of the team (he is from California). After his bachelor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Davis, Scott got a job in protein chemistry at a Danish biotech company. After seven years, he decided to move to Denmark to pursue a master's in Biotechnology at DTU. Being the most thorough person in the laboratory, Scott is in charge of important experiments such as chromotography and characterization. He was also in charge of our BioBrick tutorial for the other Danish iGEM teams. Outside of school he enjoys soccer, ultimate, brewing beer, and more soccer. |
Verena Volf, MSc Biotechnology (2nd year)
Verena, our Austrian team member, is always prepared for the next meeting and has been in charge of practicalities, thinking way ahead of the rest of the team and ensuring facilities for every situation. As she already has research experience from internships during her bachelor in Vienna and her exchange semester in Paris, Verena is responsible for planning and conducting lab experiments during the project. She was also responsible for organizing the BioBricks tutorial for Danish iGEM teams and has been involved in our Human Practice activities. In her free time Verena enjoys bouldering, jogging, travelling and learning Danish. After having spent most of the summer in the lab, participating in iGEM has not only expanded her knowledge in biotechnology, but also taught her a lot of useful Danish lab terms. |
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Mads Anderson, MSc Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (2nd year)
Mads is our software expert. In the iGEM team he is developing the Wiki Wizard and together with Pernille responsible for the overall planning of the project. During his studies he has been one of the lead developers on the oligo designer MODEST and the lymphocyte structure modelling tool LYRA. After iGEM he is going to do his master's thesis in lentiviral vectors at Aarhus University.
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Michael Poulsen, MSc Pharmaceutical Design and Engineering (2nd year)
Michael was a part of many subprojects within our Human Practice activities. Besides taking care about Economy and Finances, he was a helpful hand in the lab, office and kitchen... He occured to be a masterchef, caring about our empty stomachs after long days in the lab. Additionally, Michael used his grafic designer skills in creating our team logo and final banner for iGEM Giant Jamboree.
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Advisors and Supervisors
Associate Professor Christopher Workman
Associate Professor Mogens Kilstrup
Associate Professor Jan Martinussen