Team:TU Dresden/Team
Nina Lautenschläger
Biology, Master 4th semester
Nina is our most experienced lab member who keeps an open ear for everyone and helps in every situation – she often saved us from totally ruining our own experiments! Putting all of her power in creating a completely new Beta-lactam biosensor in Bacillus subtilis, to get the best results, she spent countless hours in the lab. Furthermore, she runs our Instagram profile, planned parts of our travel and organized a lot of the funding from sponsors. Our beautiful team logo also originates from her pen. Additionally, she is a member of our iGEM goes green team and won a photo competition with one of her nice snapshots that enabled us to compensate for our flights to Boston.
Merle Brügmann
Molecular Biotechnology, Bachelor 6th semester
Merle is an incredibly enthusiastic person. With idealism and stamina, she puts all her effort in the achievement of our team´s goals, while inspiring others to give their best. She is always a source of creative ideas and led the “Secretion” subproject to success. She also came up with the idea for the iGEM goes green initiative and contributed greatly to it´s accomplishments.
Jonathan Hammer
Molecular Biotechnology, Bachelor 6th semester
Jonathan is working day and night in the lab to investigate communication between encapsulated bacteria. He is also involved in fundraising, wiki, presentation and basically everything else. He is not only an all-rounder but an incorrigible idealist as well, spending countless hours working towards the sustainability goals we set with iGEM goes green. He will definitely continue to promote lab sustainability in future after iGEM. If you cannot find him in the lab he is probably on stage with his band.
Henri Deda
Molecular Biotechnology, Bachelor 6th semester
He is not a mortal man, he is Henri Deda, the thesis student who created the Evaluation Vector and ran the setup and design of the Signal Peptide Toolbox. Together with Stefan Tassoulas, he presented in front of boards of major research institutions in Dresden to scour funding for the team, as well as soliciting from private companies in Germany. Henri is also a frequent social media poster on Facebook and LinkedIn, keeping a record of our accomplishments and entertaining the public about synthetic biology.
Lydia Kirsche
Molecular Biotechnology, Bachelor 6th semester
Lydia has not only conquered the realm of encapsulating bacteria in Peptidosomes by developing completely new methods to bring them together and test their combined superpower. She has also been our tamer of finances and German bureaucracy, kept track of our bank balance and made sure we all filled the right forms to get our flights paid (we would have been totally lost without her!). Meanwhile, she also ensured secure working conditions during the project by keeping an eye on all the safety regulations coming up with organizing an S1 laboratory.
Katja Linnemann
Computer Science, Diplom 8th Semester
Katja is right at the heart of our team. If it wasn´t for her, we wouldn´t even have been able to set up our mail account. She does not only have a solution on hand for every technical problem we encountered so far, she also has the intrinsic motivation and disposition for perfectionism needed to join the lab forces to help cloning signal peptides while single-handedly creating our wiki. She was also part of our iGEM goes green initiative and designed and co-authored the GoGreenGuide.
Vanessa Gilly
Molecular Bioengineering, Master 2nd semester
Defending the iGEM spirit and our team's attitude towards the public, Vanessa has earned the title warrior of our team. She was involved in the InterLab Study, took care of a first wiki arrangement, wrote many texts for the wiki and was our usual minutes keeper during meetings. In the iGEM goes green initiative, she was one of the GoGreenGuide authors and consequently our first contact person regarding sustainable lab work. Vanessa was involved in social media matters and together with Nina, created our Jamboree poster.
Lisa Schöne
Molecular Bioengineering, Master 2nd semester
Always nice to everybody, Lisa was trying to put us all together and keep peace in precarious moments. Keeping track of all aspects of the iGEM goes green initiative she was involved in various topics, like writing the GoGreenGuide, maintaining contact to sustainable experts from university and the creation of a Newsletter informing the other green teams. Unfortunately, we haven’t had enough capacities for a crowdfunding campaign that she was planning. Lisa was involved in the InterLab Study, was part of the wiki team and also has put her effort into making the Jamboree presentation great.
Anastasia Sveshnikova
Molecular Bioengineering, Master 2nd semester
Anastasia's mind flows like a river. She has a lot of ideas and opinions about almost everything that is going on. That is why she has been ever present in many different projects; from the signal peptide toolbox to organizing the German-wide meetup, as well as the wiki. She likes to get work done in the iGEM project and make the most of the iGEM experience. In the future, she hopes to continue working in science as a bioinformatician and search for basic algorithms behind biological processes.
Jorge Jimenez
Molecular Bioengineering, Master 4th semester
Jorge is probably the funniest person you will ever meet in your life. He works on our Peptidosomes, giving his best to stabilize these tiny objects. Together with Lydia, he encapsulated bacteria in Peptidosomes and made them grow happily inside. Although the plate reader isn’t his best friend, he managed to develop a lot of useful methods. Additionally, he has filled every lab day with laughter.
Davide Recchia
Molecular Bioengineering, Master 2nd semester
Davide is a humble student who always has a smile on his face. He assists in the secretion project with Merle and Henri and oversaw organizing the German-wide meetup. He brought brawn to the team as he has cloned 10 signal peptides and worked with other members to keep track of iGEM deadlines and fill in the gaps when necessary.
Olga Mitrofanova
Regenerative Biology and Medicine, Master 2nd semester
Having done a bachelor thesis in microbiology, Olga joined our team to continue work on a topic she is well aware of. She has contributed to the signal peptide toolbox and was always willing to help others with further projects. She was crucial for the organisation of the German-wide meetup, wiki, project presentation and other team-activities. Having a great abundance of optimism and bright personality, she is always shining to us with her good mood.
Anastasia "LaBoo" Labudina
Regenerative Biology and Medicine, Master 2nd semester
Labu is the amazing photographer and art designer of our team. She was ready to advise with all the design associated issues. She created the iGEM goes green logo and hand-designed our wiki images. Additionally she was involved in the organization of the German-wide meetup. Surface decoration of Peptidosomes was implemented by her.
Stefan Tassoulas
Molecular Bioengineering, Master 2nd semester
Stefan mainly contributed to our project in the very beginning, as he was able to make fundraising within BIOTEC, CRTD, and other parts of TU-Dresden - which allowed us to be able to achieve more in our project and outreach. As a former iGEM participant, Stefan shared some experience with the team. He was a starting point and crucial element for participation of our team in Long Night of Science. With his genuine and unique individuality, Stefan cheered us up a lot of times and infused the team with perfect level of chill.
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Mascher
Primary PI
Since 2015, Prof. Dr. Thorsten Mascher has been Full Professor of General Microbiology at the Technische Universität (TU) Dresden. The main interest of the department is how microorganisms communicate with, and respond to changes occurring within their environment. As a Professor of Synthetic Microbiology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, he has already supervised four LMU-Munich iGEM teams (2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014). Together with his co-workers and iGEM-alumni Franzi and Philipp, he just had to continue iGEMming after moving to Dresden, reflecting his engagement and heart blood for iGEM competitions. 2017 is his first TU Dresden team.
Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Braun
Secondary PI
Since 1994, Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Braun has been the head of the polymer micro- and nanostructure group at the IPF (Institute of Polymer research), focusing on the formation at surfaces and interfaces. Discovery of self-assembling monolayers by his research group was the starting point of the whole Peptidosomes story. He also has great experience in biotechnological competitions teams supervision, and is interested in our team progress in different aspects: from German-wide meetup organisation to viability of bacteria inside Peptidosomes.
Philipp Popp, M.Sc.
PhD student, supervisor
After participating in iGEM 2014, Philipp still is keen on tackling some aspects of B. subtilis biology, so he is guiding us through roads of iGEM: He advised on all our experiments as well as teaching us different methods of molecular biology. We largely profit from his mentoring, learning many new aspects in terms of laboratory experience and proper handling of instruments.
Franziska Dürr, M.Sc.
PhD student, supervisor
Franzi is a 2012 iGEM participant, who still feels as a iGEM alumni community member and works with Prof. Dr. Mascher, ever since her iGEM project in 2012. We are extremely glad, that she is always there to help with our B. subtilis newbies questions and to advise us on weekly meetings.
