Malek Kabani

Like Ellen Ripley, Malek comes off strong at first. But, eventually she softens up and shows her true nature: a sweet and intelligent girl who has a lot to say.
Her persistent questioning and refusal to perform an experiment before all the parameters are understood probably makes her the most knowledgeable person on the team and if we were to experience aliens overtaking the lab then she could incubate them to death.

Lisa Dratva

Do you have a question for anyone about anything? Then there’s a big chance that Lisa’s already been there and asked that.
Her knowledge on toehold switches is so outstanding that if you ever have a question you need to ask you know "Who ya gonna call" and she’ll get you plate-reader results more efficiently than the Ghostbusters can harvest ectoplasm.

Natalija Gucevska

Neo is a good hacker? Pfft… Natalija created the Matrix.
The wiki and the Toehold Designer software are her babies. Her skill, determination and efficiency have saved the rest of team from coiling up in a foetal position in a corner of the room whilst figuring out that Python is not a snake and taught us that HTML allows you to do more than watching cat videos.

Jonathan Melis

Walter White, John Melis… What’s the difference?
John’s determination and intensity make him an invaluable asset to the team. Although he doesn’t do microfluidic chips in his tighty whities he’s just as efficient and deadly when it comes to surface chemistry. Even if we thought chip delamination would prove his undoing he stands tall in the face of their adversity.

Lena Bruhin

She is… the Batman!
Lena’s organizational skills, calm and laser-focus enables her to keep everyone else and their shenanigans in check. She’s used more gadgets to perform PCRs than Batman has in his utility belt. But unlike the masked vigilante she’s not all dark and brooding, no sir.
Bruce Wayne could learn a thing or two.

Matteo Pirson

If you could adapt Luke Skywalker’s growth in skill as a jedi to the world of bio-engineering then you’d end up with someone similar to Matteo.
Initially a clueless boy, he has grown into a microfluidics Grand-Master. He can align a PDMS chip with one hand, nail a chip’s surface chemistry and a sandwich assay all at the same time. He’s become so efficient, some say that it is the will of the Force!

Timothée Ferrari

Bio-engineering’s Chandler Bing, Tim always has a joke at the ready.
A beer in one hand and pipetting samples onto magnetic beads with the other, he loves to have a good laugh. He’s aged a decade trying to make his protocols work but still manages to goof around like it were a young man’s game. He tells enough jokes that we might recommend him to stop bio-engineering and start doing stand-up.

Elia Fernandez

“C’est un scandal!” (It’s scandalous!) – Elia

Need a Penny to deliver lysate faster? Elia always has hers with her.
The female version of Jack Sparrow, she always has a pun in mind and often ends up asking why the beer is always gone. She’ll make enough lysate to last you a lifetime and reaches out to the community in ways that make the team look so good that Donald Trump's PR team should probably take a lesson out of her book!

Felix Faltings

Cell free beer!

The team’s expatriate, Felix went into hiding at Georgia Tech.
Probably to find a larger audience for his whacky ideas. The Doc Brown of the group, his outer-space ideas often fall on deaf ears, but when his brain hits 88 mph the project goes… Back to the Future!

Gregoire Michielin

Have a problem you seemingly can’t overcome? Don’t worry, Greg will whip it away more efficiently than Indy ever could. The fedora might have been replaced by a Blackhawks cap, but don’t be fooled. Always coming up with creative solutions to the cornucopia of problems the team has had, thanks to him we’ve been able to outrun the giant boulder and finish our adventure.

Zoe Swank

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a female incarnation of The Dude? Well wonder no more. Always relaxed and sporting a smile when a question is asked, her knowledge is seemingly unending and be assured that we’ve picked her brain over innumerable issues. When the students started to panic, she was the chill pill we needed. It’s all better now.

Barbora Lavickova

Barbora’s knowledge has saved us so many times we stopped counting… Months ago.
She is our Tinkerbell: have a problem, ask for help and as soon as she gets involved, magic happens! Seemingly reserved at first, Barbora was always very invested in our progress. She makes sure you’re doing things correctly and that you understand what you’re doing, which is no small feat with this team.

Ekaterina Petrova

Living her life at a 100 kph: efficiency is her motto. Her daily consumption of Coca-Cola might be sufficient to keep the company running all by herself. If you manage to catch this real-life incarnation of the road-runner, she’ll probably be able to answer any question you might have. She’s in the lab so often, you might wonder if she lives there. I mean its Sunday for crying out loud!

Ivan Istomin

The fundamentalist of the TA team he wants things done right and when I mean right I mean perfect. He’s scolded the team on more than one occasion, but I mean… It was justified. Always in thought so deep you might wonder if he’s actually recalculating the meaning of life. Cause 42 just doesn’t seem right. But that doesn’t prevent him from organizing some awesome barbeques.

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Maerkl

If Rocky’s brawn had Sebastian’s brain… He’d be unstoppable. Initially aptamers didn’t really float his boat but eventually he came around and thanks to him we’ve been able to beat down the hurdles that came our way. A literal treasure trove of ideas, he’s brought the project forward by leaps and bounds and led the team from start to finish with great dexterity.

Dr. Barbara Grisoni-Neupert

If The Riddler were ever to apply his relentless questioning to the world of synthetic biology then maybe he’d push us to ask the same mind shattering questions Barbara did. Always pushing the team to think further and reach a deeper understanding of what we were doing, thanks to her calm and calculated directing we’ve managed to overcome numerous problems.

Team

iGEM EPFL is a melting pot of specialties and eccentric personalities. A computer scientist, a chemist and 7 bio-engineers have come together to test out wild hypotheses and spend countless hours in the lab. Tearing their hair out when they fail and running victory laps around the campus with each success.

Over time the team has become more efficient and cohesive, but that took time… The eccentric and sometimes larger than life personalities of each member has wrought some particular situations. Situations that make fun conversations around a beer, something that the team might be a little too fond of.