Attributions

This year’s iGEM competition has been an exhilarating, instructive and absolutely nerve-wracking experience. A team of 24 students from two different cities got together to create a new milestone in synthetic biology. At the end of this year we are happy and more than proud to look back at everything we have achieved as a team. However, none of this would have been even imaginable without the amazing support of all the people who accompanied us throughout this year. Therefore, we are dedicating this part of our wiki to all the special people who helped us realize our project, no matter if it was with their technical support and knowledge, infrastructure, or organization.

Team work

Name	Responsible	Involved	Helping
Aikaterini Karapantsiou	PR Representative Organisation Finances / Fundraising / Sponsoring Integrated Human Practice SynBio Conference Final Presentation Boston Lab Safety / Safety Forms Judging Form MakeUp artist	Outreach - school project Collaboration - translations Lab: Size and number control	Social Media
Anna Sappler	PEX7 Import and Mutagenesis Outreach - school project Media	Boston presentation
Bastiaan Tjeng	Sensors Imaging and microscopy
Daniela Wall	Metabolic Engineering: Nootkatone		Public engagement
Eric Behle	Optogenetics Hardware Final project presentation Proofreading	Integrated Human Practice	Outreach
Fiona Edenhofer	Metabolic Engineering: violacein Social Media Outreach: game design		Outreach: school project
Hendrik Cooper	Membrane Integration Project Final project presentation Social Media Photos	SynBio Conference Integrated Human Practice Graphics
Jan Maika	Laboratory Duesseldorf Representative Secretion Metabolic Engineering Imaging & Microscopy	PTS1 Mutagenesis Integrated Human Practice	PTS2 Mutagenesis
Jason Müller	Pex5 Modeling Sponsoring Microscopy Cologne PTS1 Mutagenesis
Kristin Gehling	Metabolic Engineering: violacein Social Media	Outreach: School Project Outreach: Card Game
Lisa Wolpers	PTS2 Mutagenesis Integrated Human Practice Organisation Finances / Fundraising / Sponsoring	SynBio Conference Collaboration Biobricks	Outreach: school project
Manuel Lentzen	Laboratory Cologne Representative PEX5 Modeling/Mutagenesis PTS1 Mutagenesis
Marvin van Aalst	Metabolic Model and Strain Design Wiki Layout and Coding Graphics Primer Design Software		Membrane Integration
Pauline Ott	Lab: Size and number control Outreach: school project	SynBio Conference	Integrated human practice
Philipp Müller	Metabolic Engineering: Nootkatone Outreach: Card Game	Outreach: School Project Sponsoring / Fundraising	Public Engagement
Philipp Rink	Secretion Introduction General Yeast Work Fluorescent Peroxisomal (Membrane-) markers	Metabolic engineering	Virtual Cloning Import
Rene Inckemann	Yeast genome engineering Cas9 & Integration Imaging & Microscopy Project designs; initial paper research General Organisation Introduction General Labwork Collaboration Organisation	Metabolic engineering Integrated Human Practice Optogenetics	PEX5 directed mutagenesis PTS1 & PTS2 random mutagenesis SynBio Conference Protein work and Western Blot
Tobias Brügner	Sensors Imaging & microscopy
Alina Kuklinski	Finances / Fundraising / Sponsoring Organisation Social Media Meet-up Coordination Marketing Wedding planner Instructor	Human Practice	Membrane Integration Project
Carolin Krämer	Organisation Public Engagement Postcard Campaign Organisation Instructor	Human Practice Collaboration	Optogenetics
Kai Hußnätter	Secretion Pex7 import and mutagenesis planning Organisation Advisor	Protein work and Western blot Scientific proofreading Molecular biological methods theory and protocols	Primer design and virtual cloning Metabolic Engineering Presentation training
Marvin Hubert	Metabolic engineering: Nootkatone Synthesis Imaging & microscopy Plate reader analysis Interlab study Collaboration cloning for team Aachen Instructor	Western Blot analysis Integrated human practice - contact to Ralf Erdmann
Nicolas Schmelling	Internetboy Lightboy Advisor
Tim Blomeier	Sensors Optogenetics Import PEX5 Microscopy boy Advisor		Presentation training Proofreading Microscopy techniques

Help and Support

Prof Dr. Matias Zurbriggen (Institute for Synthetic Biology, HHU), our primary PI, who supported our team in getting started this year and helped us find a suitable and realizable topic. Furthermore, he provided us with theoretical knowledge and valuable input regarding our project during weekly meetings with our three team representatives. He also provided us with chemicals and consumables, whenever something was missing in our lab.

Prof. Dr. Gunther Döhlemann (Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, UzK), one of our secondary PIs, who provided our team in Cologne with a lab to work in as well as equipment and consumables. Furthermore, we would like to thank all members of the institute for their assistance with experiments.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Weber (Institute for Plant Biochemistry, HHU), our secondary PI from Duesseldorf. For the second time he was a great mentor and contact person for many aspects of our project. He played a big role in helping us find our topic, supported us with valuable theoretical knowledge as well as organizational issues, especially regarding the planning and implementation of our SynBio conference.

Dr. Martin Mauve (Dean, HHU) for providing our team with a common room to work in. Furthermore he approved a generous financial grant from the Heinrich Heine University.

Brigitte Haumann (CEPLAS, HHU) for being our team’s guardian angel. She helped us with the entire organization of the project outside of lab, including fundraising and financial administration, registration, booking flights (and amending the booking multiple times) and a lot more. Most of all we would like to thank her for her moral support and her undying iGEM spirit.

Dr. Stefanie Zeretzke (UzK) for administering the project in Cologne, including dealing with all bureaucratic problems, finances and general administration.

Prof. Dr. Markus Pauly (Institute for Plant Cell and Biotechnology, HHU) provided our team with an entire lab in Duesseldorf. Furthermore he more than generously supported us with all the equipment and consumables we needed for our work.

Prof. Dr. Stanislav Kopriva (Botanical Institute, UzK) supported the team with work space in his laboratory as well as chemicals and equipment.

Prof. Dr. Michael Feldbrügge (Institute for Microbiology, HHU) for his general advice and for constantly providing us with lab equipment whenever required.

Prof. Dr. Ilka Axmann (Institute for Synthetic Microbiology, HHU) for her help in building the new iGEM team and choosing this year’s research topic.

Prof. Dr. Peter Westhoff (Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, HHU) for generously providing us with fund to get set up for this year's competition.

Prof. Dr. Lutz Schmitt (Institute for Biochemistry, HHU) for his generous financial support.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Klein (Institute for Genetics, HHU) for providing us with a dark room for our optogenetics experiments.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Langer (Institute for Genetics, UZK) for providing us with funds to set up the laboratory in Cologne.

Dr. Nicole Linka (Institute for Plant Biochemistry, HHU) for her invaluable advice on working with peroxisomes. She invested a lot of time and effort into sharing her knowledge and pushing our project forward.

Prof. Dr. Ralf Erdmann (Systems Biochemistry, Ruhr University Bochum) and his colleagues for taking the time to introduce us to working with peroxisomes and providing us with knockout strains we needed for our project.

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Oliver Ebenhöh (Institute for Quantitative Biology, HHU), MSc. Nima Saadat (Institute for Quantitative Biology, HHU) and Prof. Dr. Holger Gohlke (Institute for Pharmaceutical Chemistry, HHU) supported both, our modeling and hardware teams with expertise and materials, especially in 3D printing and modeling. Furthermore Jun.-Prof. Dr. Oliver Ebenhöh generously provided the funds for our hardware.

Prof. Dr. Vlada B. Urlacher, Dr. Sebastian Schulz & Dr. Marco Girhard (Institute for Biochemistry II, HHU) for their advice on working with Nootkatone.

Dr. Maike Wirth (Molecular Devices) for not only providing our team with a plate reader for our experiments but also taking the time to instruct us on how to properly work with its software and how to apply it for our purpose.

Dr. Christian Dumpitak (iGRAD, HHU) for giving us professional presentation training and briefing us on how to improve our presentation.

Anna Behle for her valuable advice and help in the lab.

Nicolas Krink for his valuable input for the metabolic engineering team .

Daniel Mulnaes and Dr. Markus Dick for their advice regarding our molecular dynamics approach.

Barbara Schulten (Technical Assistant, Institute for Plant Cell and Biotechnology, HHU), our knight in shining lab coat, for her irreplaceable daily support in the Duesseldorf lab.

Center for Advanced Imaging (CAi, HHU) especially Dr. Sebastian Hänsch and Dr. Thomas Zobel for their help and advice on microscopy.

Dr. Sabine Metzger, Dr. Vera Wewer, Felix Büchel (MS Platform CEPLAS, UzK) for their great support with MS analysis.

Dr. Florian David (Biopetrolia) for the time he dedicated into listening to our project plans and the advice he gave us to improve the size and number control of our compartment.

John Dueber & Will DeLoache for giving us advice on how to use their yeast toolkit and allowing us to use their graphics for our card game.

Prof. Dr. Alison Baker (University of Leeds) for an enlightening discussion and her much appreciated input on the Pex5 import.

Dr. Johann Ach (Reference Centre for Bioethics, Münster) for introducing us to the fundamentals of bioethics and instructing us on how to evaluate our work guided by ethical and socio-economic compass questions.

Dr. Harald Heider (Evolva Basel) & Dr. Mary Bossermann (Evolva USA) for advising us on the pitfalls on working with nootkatone as well as discussing limitations and opportunities of our project.

Prof. Dr. Susanne Bickel (vBIO) for her financial support as well as promoting iGEM and our project within the biological society in Germany. Furthermore, she invited us to different occasions to present our work.

Dr. Frauke Hangen (BioRiver NRW) for providing us with a stage to present our project during the BioRiver Start Up Slam.