Team:Oxford/Team

Alissa Hummer

Alissa Hummer (Biochemistry)
Co-leader
She. cruzi
Alissa spends most of her iGEM days split between the wet lab, working with the engineers on mathematical modelling, and doing organizational things because she loves pretty much everything. Her experience in other labs prior to iGEM is invaluable to the team, because she knows all of the tips and tricks for efficient research. Outside of iGEM she enjoys playing football, being in nature, and reading.

Angela Hellyer

Angela Hellyer (Biochemistry)
Wet Lab Co-ordinator & Safety
G. weazli
Angela doesn’t really know how she ended up being in charge of safety, it kind of just happened when she wasn’t looking. Creator of the cake rota, she likes to keep things light, and provides some moral support for when things inevitably go wrong; only to be fixed promptly of course! Outside of iGEM she enjoys food and all things astro-, along with being Zoe F’s main Hogwarts buddy.

Arthur Norman

Arthur Norman (Biochemistry)
Co-leader
T. freezi
Arthur has been dubbed ‘freezer boy’, and his super powers include being able to organise freezer boxes without them thawing and the ability to tidy away everyone else’s eppendorfs. Arthur spends his time split between working in the lab and coming up with novel ideas for the project. When outside the lab he plays tennis, runs, and drinks pimms, sometimes all three at the same time.

Chun Ngai Au

Chun Ngai Au (Engineering)
Dry Lab Co-ordinator
T. snoozi
Chun likes creating colourful and cool looking graphs on Matlab, although he isn’t totally against putting on a lab coat and pipetting a couple of things every now and again. He put in a lot of work at the beginning of the project to catch up on the biochemistry, but is now as knowledgable as the rest of us. Outside of iGEM, he likes to play Ultimate, sleep, and eat spicy food - even his pizzas tend to have chillies on them.

Helen Siyu Ren

Helen Siyu Ren (Engineering)
Dry Lab Co-ordinator
Si. yuzi
As one of the few non-bio students, Helen is learning new things in the wet lab while spending the rest of time staring at her laptop doing wiki pages and trying to implement the complicated model that comes with all of our many parts. She is one of those people who really likes to sit on the floor, where her free time is spent reading, playing bridge, and eating delicious food she made earlier.

Jei Diwakar

Jei Diwakar (Biochemistry)
Treasurer
T. schmoozi
Jei’s role means that sending emails and adding SUM functions to Excel have become routine to him. He spends most of his time doing wet lab work, unless he is organising flights and hotels, then he is on the phone all day! Outside of the lab, Jei plays a lot of cricket for the Oxford University Cricket Club and also is a co-founder of the Oxford University Biotech Society.

John Myers

John Myers (Biochemistry)
Secretary
Oui. cruzi
John keeps track of the team’s regular meetings and is enthusiastic about outreach. Often he can be found helping out in the lab, learning all of the protocols in detail. Outside of iGEM, he rows for his college, plays the violin, and cooks - very useful for the team’s weekly cake rota. He also introduced a large chunk of the team to Bridget Jones, for which we are all eternally grateful.

Kushal Mansatta

Kushal Mansatta (Medicine)
Wiki Co-ordinator & Social Sec
He. cruzi
Kushal is a second year medic at New College. By day he can usually be found browsing older wikis for inspiration or reminding people to reference EVERYTHING they read; by night he makes sure everyone on the team has fun and eats well. Outside of iGEM, he enjoys going to the gym, caring for patients at his job on a hospital ward, and switching off at the end of the day with trashy TV.

Noah Sprent

Noah Sprent (Biochemistry)
Co-leader
No. shoezi
Noah loves making agendas for meetings and reading about definitely-not-useless features on Benchling when he’s not keeping our lab beautifully clean. Although life outside of iGEM isn’t really life at all, Noah is a co-founder of the Oxford University Biotech Society, tries to do cool things with the Oxford University Gymnastics Club, and has confusing discussions with his philosopher housemates.

Sumaera Rathore

Sumaera Rathore (Biology)
iGEM Requirements Co-ordinator
Tea. Brewzi
Sumaera puts the 'bio' into 'biochem' and is responsible for ensuring our project ticks all the boxes in the judging booklet so we can really impress the judges with all our hard work. She also knows a lot more about parasites than the rest of us. Outside of iGEM, Sumaera enjoys anything to do with plants, tea, and chocolate. In fact, she brightened up our iGEM desks with a collection of aloe plants!

Zoë Catchpole

Zoë Catchpole (Biochemistry)
Outreach & Human Practices
Cant. choozi
Zoe wants to show everyone that synbio is as cool as she thinks it is by designing ‘fun’ activities for outreach, and is key to co-ordinating all of our meetings with experts from across the globe. She is always keen to pitch in with the lab work too. Outside of iGEM she has grade 8 recorder, but unfortunately serenading our E. coli hasn’t yet helped our transformation efficiency!

Zoe Ford

Zoe Ford (Biochemistry)
Wet Lab Co-ordinator & Social Media
'Wee'. cruzi
Zoe enjoys spending endless hours in the lab pipetting clear liquids from one tube into another. Along with being our Queen of SnapGene, they love taking pictures of everything and everyone to make the prettiest iGEM Instagram account in history. Outside of iGEM they referee quidditch, sing in choirs, and use a lot of their free time in the evenings cross-stitching everything - including our logo!

Supervisors

Dr. George Wadhams
Oxford Department of Biochemistry

Dr. George Wadhams' research interests lie in how bacteria sense and integrate environmental information. His group foocuses on understanding in a quantitative manner how multiple, homologous pathways operate in individual cells and how the components of these pathways can be used to create synthetic pathways.