Attributions

Internal Team

Lab Support

Thank you to the many individuals who gave their time and expertise to guide our project. It has been incredibly thought-provoking and informative to see our work through the eyes of experts in research and clinical practice.

INTERNAL TEAM

Wet-Lab: Emilia Chen, Raveena Gowda, Ryan Hong, Morris Huang, Madina Kagieva, Brenda Ma, Myles Osenton, Taylor Reilly, Michaela Samanta, Janella Schwab, Livia Vieira

Dry-Lab: Umar Ali, Samuel Hahn, Patrick Lee, Kimia Rostin, George Tang, Ben Walker

Human Practices: Umar Ali, Emilia Chen, Raveena Gowda, Madina Kagieva, Brenda Ma, Ali Murtaza, Sarah Ng, Ariel Qi, Kimia Rostin, Paarsa Salman, Parneet Sekhon, Livia Vieira

Wiki Design & Development: Umar Ali, Patrick Lee, Meriwether Morris, Sarah Ng, Kimia Rostin, George Tang

Finance: Sarah Ng, Ariel Qi

Marketing: Umar Ali, Paarsa Salman

Graphic Design: Meriwether Morris, Sarah Ng, Myles Osenton

Advisors: Sibyl Drissler, Evan Gibbard, Samuel King, Athanasios Kritharis, Kieran Maheden, Daniel McClement, Rodrigo Vallejos

Principal Investigators: Dr. Steven Hallam, Dr. David Oliver

EXTERNAL EXPERTISE

Dr. Kevin Bennewith - Scientist at BC Cancer Agency; Associate Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine UBC for discussing with us the possibility of our platform as a therapeutic, and aspects of the tumour microenvironment which could be modulated to increase the effectiveness of immunotherapy.

Dr. Wanyin Deng - Research Associate at Finlay Lab, Michael Smith Laboratories, UBC for his generous sharing of an attenuated Salmonella strain and help with Salmonella wet-lab protocols.

Dr. Anne-Marie Fortier - Research Associate, Goodman Cancer Research Centre, McGill University for informing us on using tumour hydrogel models to test our platform, and discussing nuances in tumour microenvironment biology.

Dr. Tracy Kion - Associate Professor of Teaching, UBC Department of Microbiology and Immunology for giving us wet-lab insight and offering her support for the project and team.

Dr. Katelyn Knuff-Janzen - PhD student at Finlay Lab, Michael Smith Laboratories, UBC, now graduated for her generous help and advice for working with Salmonella and their genomes.

Dr. James Lim - Investigator at BC Children’s Hospital in Childhood Cancer and Blood Research; Associate Professor, UBC Faculty of Medicine for informing us on relevant immune biomarkers, offering ideas for further experiments, and clarifying the potential impacts of the project.

Dr. Brad Nelson - Scientific Co-Director of BC Cancer’s Immunotherapy Program; Director of Deeley Research Centre; Professor of Medical Genetics, UBC for clarifying the need for our project in clinical practice and possible barriers to implementation.

Dr. Stephen Robbins - Scientific Director, Institute of Cancer Research, Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Professor in Oncology, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, UCalgary for suggesting features that would be ideal in our project, and offering promising avenues to explore for the therapeutic aspect.

Dr. Morgan Roberts - Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vancouver Prostate Center and UBC Faculty of Medicine for informing us on tumour microenvironment immunology, and where the need for non-invasive predictive methods for immunotherapy is greatest.

Dr. Mathieu Roumiguié - Urologic Surgeon, Hospital Center University De Toulouse for giving a clinician’s perspective on the project, current methods, and considerations for clinical trials.

Dr. Daniel Saltzman - Professor and Chief of Pediatric Surgery, University of Minnesota; Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer, Salspera for his expert feedback on the uses of Salmonella as a biosensor and therapeutic, as well as clinical applications of our project and possible barriers for implementation.

Dr. Dov Stekel - Professor of Computational Biology, University of Nottingham for sharing with us his model for predicting lux system light output.

EDUCATION & OUTREACH

The C.O.D.E. Initiative Foundation: - for their collaboration in teaching coding to both neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals, to expand the accessibility of STEM and coding.

Humboldt Berlin iGEM Team - for collaborating and sharing knowledge about our common interest: using Salmonella as a reporter system for cancer. Together, we designed educational infographics on the topic and clarified how our approaches are clinically feasible.

STEM Sorority: - for providing our female members with a platform to share their different paths in research and industry and promote STEM fields amongst young women.

UBC Geering Up: - for allowing our team members to create and deliver a genetic engineering workshop to highschool students, as a chance to spark interest in synthetic biology amongst the younger generation.

USP Brazil iGEM: - for their collaboration in our outreach efforts, helping us to communicate to and reach school children in Brazil.

LAB SUPPORT

Alyssa Henderson, Dr. Tom Pfeifer, Avery Noonan - Hallam Lab, Life Sciences Institute, Department of Microbiology and Immunology for helping to train our team on operating lab equipment and offering guidance in high-throughput experiments.

Dr. Karissa Milbury, Dr. Jennifer Bonderoff - Hallam Lab, Life Sciences Institute, Department of Microbiology and Immunology for managing logistics and ordering lab equipment and reagents for the team.

FINANCE & FUNDRAISING

Susan Palichuk, Odette Rivers, Resmi Radhamony - Hallam Lab, Life Sciences Institute, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, UBC for their help with team finances and management of funds.

TRAINING & PROJECT START

Our institution does not teach an iGEM or purely synthetic biology course. Our team began brainstorming in late December of 2020, and began work in the lab in late May of 2021.