Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/Attributions
Attribution
We could not have done this without you
SUMMARY
Only being 8 people on the team, accompanied with great ambitions and long working days, this year's iGEM has for our team, quite literally, been filled with blood, sweat and tears. While the road has been bumpy and not everything has been as smooth as it could be, we would not have been able to accomplish what we did without everyone giving their full effort. Also, our project from lab to outreach to human practices to funding to the wiki would not have been possible without our supervisors and additional external help. On this page we will highlight what each team member have contributed with throughout our project but more importantly attributing and thanking all of those who have helped us on the way by clearly stating what they have done for us, for which we cannot express enough gratitude.
Our Contribution
Principal Investigator
Supervisors
Team
External
DP of biology | sys2bio
Design & Video
Eurofins
Wiki
Melt&Marble
Other
Team, PI and supervisors
Verena Siewers: Principal Investigator
Wet lab, Funding, Project Advice, Outreach
Verena started up the team and have remained PI for several years in a row and have provided training and guidance to the team through an introductory synthetic biology course and provided feedback throughout the project. Her support has been invaluable for avoiding pitfalls and realizing the project, and helped us improve both lab designs as well as general ideas around the project including outreach.
She has also been of great support in suggesting and recommending funding resources, where to look for them and how to apply for funding.
Verena started up the team and have remained PI for several years in a row and have provided training and guidance to the team through an introductory synthetic biology course and provided feedback throughout the project. Her support has been invaluable for avoiding pitfalls and realizing the project, and helped us improve both lab designs as well as general ideas around the project including outreach.
She has also been of great support in suggesting and recommending funding resources, where to look for them and how to apply for funding.
Andrea Clausen Lind and Angelo Limeta: Supervisors
Wet lab, Modelling, Outreach, General advice
As supervisors of the team, Andrea and Angelo have guided us through the brainstorming process and acted as capable mentors in every aspect of the project. They have especially supported us in the design and planning of experiments, as well as a source of laboratory know-how. As previous iGEM members themselves they have inspired us and centered our focus on what would be important for completing the project.
We were also provided a lab bench and most laboratory consumables through Sotirios’ group as well as training and guidance.
As supervisors of the team, Andrea and Angelo have guided us through the brainstorming process and acted as capable mentors in every aspect of the project. They have especially supported us in the design and planning of experiments, as well as a source of laboratory know-how. As previous iGEM members themselves they have inspired us and centered our focus on what would be important for completing the project.
We were also provided a lab bench and most laboratory consumables through Sotirios’ group as well as training and guidance.
Team contribution
Fanny – Teamleader, Wetlab
Being one of the team leaders, Fanny has had to organise everything and made sure all parts of the project have been running smoothly and according to plan. She has also made an extensive contribution to the wet lab work, from designing the project and its parts to testing and implementing it. Since most yeast transformations she was involved in were successful, she adopted the nickname: Yeast Kween. Additionally, she has made an important contribution to the human practices work and was nicknamed the “design team” during the planning of the Nordic iGEM Conference, NiC (for a reason). Her creative skills have also been an invaluable resource when making the presentation and promotion videos, where she played a big part in creating scripts, presentation slides and finalising the videos. She has contributed to the wiki pages for human practices and wet lab. She has scanned the wiki for grammar mistakes and spelling errors, so if you find any it is her fault. She is also part of the ice coffee team!
Lina – Teamleader, Wetlab
Just as Fanny, Lina (with her mental age of 63 years and excel sheets) has made invaluable contributions to the team. Not only in organisation skills (we have not missed a deadline yet!) and economy, but also regarding the wet lab and human practices. In wet lab Lina contributed with initial design of both the project and gene fragments, as well as a strong and important presence during the actual lab work, including planning and execution of the experiments. She did most of the scripting of the promotion video and presentation video, as well as filming and creating presentation slides together with Fanny. Lina also did the full safety form and contributed to the outreach initiative the Transcriptome. As for outreach, she was thrown into the toastmaster role during the NiC dinner (last minute) and made a terribly good (read: terrible) job. Lastly, she contributed to the wiki pages for human practices, safety, wetlab, attributions and medal criteria. Team ice coffee!
Christer – Wetlab, Funding
Christer is essentially the godfather of the project, he worked heavily on the initial project proposal and the design of the experiments. His knowledge and interest in (bio)chemistry has been a valuable contribution to the project. Christer wrote the astonishing project description and implementation pages for the Wiki, and created the homepage in collaboration with Alexandra Polyakova. He also added to the attribution page and together with Olof, he also presented the project at The Nordic iGEM Conference. Christer has also helped greatly with our outreach and human practice initiatives by finding key contacts as well as joined in on interviews and coordinating with stakeholders. In addition, Christer have provided some organizational support to Lina and Fanny as team leaders to help with formalizing the structure and planning of the project. Christer also supervised and managed our funding efforts.
Edwin - Wetlab, Outreach
Edwin single handily pushed SysBios budget towards the edge simply by drinking coffee and probably tripled the team's coffee consumption during the summer. And he also did other stuff, such as dreaming about eating chocolate dream cookies... He had one of the strongest presences in the lab by planning and executing most types of experiments and analyses, especially for yeast transformations. He also contributed greatly to the data analysis and interpretation of our data. Edwin has made strong contributions in managing our Outreach initiatives, both finding, contacting, planning, and executing them. This also includes communication and education where he among other things introduced the concept of synthetic biology to high school students (together with Robin). He was also the biggest contributor to our largest event, the NiC with initial planning and execution, and being responsible for the live stream. He has been the main author of the wetlab wiki pages.
Robin - Wiki, Outreach
To say that Robin is a workaholic is an understatement, we know no-one else who works as much as Robin does. Because of his tireless performance, he has been of tremendous value to the team (but he should probably sleep for a month after the wiki freeze). Robin has, together with Xi, brought the Team Chalmers-Gothenburg 2021 Wiki to the world! Apart from this he has, together with Edwin, made NiC a story of success. He did an exceptional job as a host and managed the live stream even through technical difficulties. He also visited schools and educated high school students about iGEM and synthetic biology. Continuing the theme of outreach, he was the greatest contributor in our team for The Transcriptome. And with no previous experience in wet lab, he entered the lab and took his first steps in a lab full of cultivation flasks and PCR machines with no fear, and what a leap! To mention some last things, he has contributed to the wiki pages about safety, attributions, sponsors, and collaborations.
Xi - Wiki, Modelling
Being the only person on the team who initially knew HTML has been nothing but easy, but Xi is the reason (together with Robin) you can read this right now on this beautiful wiki! Except for being the main responsible for the wiki, she has also been involved in many other areas of the project. Xi has been a helpful hand in pretty much all parts of the project, among some things being wet lab, outreach, and modelling. In outreach she has contributed with animations for the livestream during NiC and added to the presentation that was shown during the conference. She was also involved in the production of the promotion video in bringing great creativity. As of modelling, she has provided protein structure predictions for the thioesterases. In closing, regarding technical support & development of the iGEM wiki, Xi has created a wiki testing environment on our local server to be able to speed up and streamline the work.
Olof – Wetlab
Olof have been one of the pillars in the execution phase of our project, he is our dearest Yeast Unicorn. He has a much-needed sense of details and is our molecular biology expert, keeping track of all mechanisms and being responsible for our parts registry. He made a large contribution to the RBS characterization project and have spent a great amount of time in the lab. Further, he has contributed to the modelling part of the project together with Erik. He is known for his ability of taking random naps in the middle of a lunchroom when a ping pong table is in use, impressive! He presented our project during NiC and was leading discussions together with Christer during the conference. For the wiki page, he helped with the project description.
Erik - PR, Modelling, Wetlab
Meet Erik, our number (diabetes type) 1 (because you do not want to be number 2) PR and dry lab manager. His largest contribution was making genome scale metabolic models of different yeast strains we used or intended to use in the lab and thereby predicting their growth when changing their metabolism. He is also one of those people who has been helping in basically all parts of the project. During NiC, he took care of the visiting Swedish teams and connected with them through ice cream and walks through Gothenburg. Erik is the person behind all the funny memes on our Instagram page (and some that only made it to our internal chat group) and has continuously updated our social media accounts. He has held a lecture about the ethical considerations of our project for biotechnology master students at Chalmers. Erik has additionally helped with interviews with different stakeholders and performed experiments in the wet lab, even with very little lab experience to start with. Regarding the wiki, Erik contributed on the modelling page.
Being one of the team leaders, Fanny has had to organise everything and made sure all parts of the project have been running smoothly and according to plan. She has also made an extensive contribution to the wet lab work, from designing the project and its parts to testing and implementing it. Since most yeast transformations she was involved in were successful, she adopted the nickname: Yeast Kween. Additionally, she has made an important contribution to the human practices work and was nicknamed the “design team” during the planning of the Nordic iGEM Conference, NiC (for a reason). Her creative skills have also been an invaluable resource when making the presentation and promotion videos, where she played a big part in creating scripts, presentation slides and finalising the videos. She has contributed to the wiki pages for human practices and wet lab. She has scanned the wiki for grammar mistakes and spelling errors, so if you find any it is her fault. She is also part of the ice coffee team!
Lina – Teamleader, Wetlab
Just as Fanny, Lina (with her mental age of 63 years and excel sheets) has made invaluable contributions to the team. Not only in organisation skills (we have not missed a deadline yet!) and economy, but also regarding the wet lab and human practices. In wet lab Lina contributed with initial design of both the project and gene fragments, as well as a strong and important presence during the actual lab work, including planning and execution of the experiments. She did most of the scripting of the promotion video and presentation video, as well as filming and creating presentation slides together with Fanny. Lina also did the full safety form and contributed to the outreach initiative the Transcriptome. As for outreach, she was thrown into the toastmaster role during the NiC dinner (last minute) and made a terribly good (read: terrible) job. Lastly, she contributed to the wiki pages for human practices, safety, wetlab, attributions and medal criteria. Team ice coffee!
Christer – Wetlab, Funding
Christer is essentially the godfather of the project, he worked heavily on the initial project proposal and the design of the experiments. His knowledge and interest in (bio)chemistry has been a valuable contribution to the project. Christer wrote the astonishing project description and implementation pages for the Wiki, and created the homepage in collaboration with Alexandra Polyakova. He also added to the attribution page and together with Olof, he also presented the project at The Nordic iGEM Conference. Christer has also helped greatly with our outreach and human practice initiatives by finding key contacts as well as joined in on interviews and coordinating with stakeholders. In addition, Christer have provided some organizational support to Lina and Fanny as team leaders to help with formalizing the structure and planning of the project. Christer also supervised and managed our funding efforts.
Edwin - Wetlab, Outreach
Edwin single handily pushed SysBios budget towards the edge simply by drinking coffee and probably tripled the team's coffee consumption during the summer. And he also did other stuff, such as dreaming about eating chocolate dream cookies... He had one of the strongest presences in the lab by planning and executing most types of experiments and analyses, especially for yeast transformations. He also contributed greatly to the data analysis and interpretation of our data. Edwin has made strong contributions in managing our Outreach initiatives, both finding, contacting, planning, and executing them. This also includes communication and education where he among other things introduced the concept of synthetic biology to high school students (together with Robin). He was also the biggest contributor to our largest event, the NiC with initial planning and execution, and being responsible for the live stream. He has been the main author of the wetlab wiki pages.
Robin - Wiki, Outreach
To say that Robin is a workaholic is an understatement, we know no-one else who works as much as Robin does. Because of his tireless performance, he has been of tremendous value to the team (but he should probably sleep for a month after the wiki freeze). Robin has, together with Xi, brought the Team Chalmers-Gothenburg 2021 Wiki to the world! Apart from this he has, together with Edwin, made NiC a story of success. He did an exceptional job as a host and managed the live stream even through technical difficulties. He also visited schools and educated high school students about iGEM and synthetic biology. Continuing the theme of outreach, he was the greatest contributor in our team for The Transcriptome. And with no previous experience in wet lab, he entered the lab and took his first steps in a lab full of cultivation flasks and PCR machines with no fear, and what a leap! To mention some last things, he has contributed to the wiki pages about safety, attributions, sponsors, and collaborations.
Xi - Wiki, Modelling
Being the only person on the team who initially knew HTML has been nothing but easy, but Xi is the reason (together with Robin) you can read this right now on this beautiful wiki! Except for being the main responsible for the wiki, she has also been involved in many other areas of the project. Xi has been a helpful hand in pretty much all parts of the project, among some things being wet lab, outreach, and modelling. In outreach she has contributed with animations for the livestream during NiC and added to the presentation that was shown during the conference. She was also involved in the production of the promotion video in bringing great creativity. As of modelling, she has provided protein structure predictions for the thioesterases. In closing, regarding technical support & development of the iGEM wiki, Xi has created a wiki testing environment on our local server to be able to speed up and streamline the work.
Olof – Wetlab
Olof have been one of the pillars in the execution phase of our project, he is our dearest Yeast Unicorn. He has a much-needed sense of details and is our molecular biology expert, keeping track of all mechanisms and being responsible for our parts registry. He made a large contribution to the RBS characterization project and have spent a great amount of time in the lab. Further, he has contributed to the modelling part of the project together with Erik. He is known for his ability of taking random naps in the middle of a lunchroom when a ping pong table is in use, impressive! He presented our project during NiC and was leading discussions together with Christer during the conference. For the wiki page, he helped with the project description.
Erik - PR, Modelling, Wetlab
Meet Erik, our number (diabetes type) 1 (because you do not want to be number 2) PR and dry lab manager. His largest contribution was making genome scale metabolic models of different yeast strains we used or intended to use in the lab and thereby predicting their growth when changing their metabolism. He is also one of those people who has been helping in basically all parts of the project. During NiC, he took care of the visiting Swedish teams and connected with them through ice cream and walks through Gothenburg. Erik is the person behind all the funny memes on our Instagram page (and some that only made it to our internal chat group) and has continuously updated our social media accounts. He has held a lecture about the ethical considerations of our project for biotechnology master students at Chalmers. Erik has additionally helped with interviews with different stakeholders and performed experiments in the wet lab, even with very little lab experience to start with. Regarding the wiki, Erik contributed on the modelling page.
External help
Division of Systems and Synthetic Biology (SysBio)
Wet lab, modelling
The Department of Systems and Synthetic Biology at Chalmers University of Technology (SysBio) has kindly allowed us to use their facilities during our project and this is where we have conducted our wet lab experiments and where our office has been located. Surrounding us have been plenty of PhD candidates, PhD’s and research engineers who have helped us with various causes. We would especially like to express gratitude to the following people and divisions at the SysBio division:
Abderahmane Derouiche & Yili Natalia Padilla. We sincerely thank research engineers Abderahmane Derouiche & Yili Natalia Padilla for providing us with safety introductions and access to the laboratory facilities. They have also made an effort in correcting and offering improvements to our safety and risk declarations.
Xiaozhi Fu. We thank Xiaozhi Fu for providing us with solutions when working with the ‘improvement of existing part’ project using luciferases (unfortunately we never finished the project).
Cheewin Kittikunapong. We thank Cheewin Kittikunapong for helping and supporting us with the modelling part of our project. He has supported us with adding genes to the RAVEN GEM model. He has also provided us a script which automatically took genes from an excel sheet and use it to our model, which made our work much easier. He also offered advice and discussion sessions on how we could improve our GEM model.
Sysbio. We also thank SysBio for providing us with the MATLAB programs RAVEN and GECKO, which were heavily used in the modelling part of the project.
The Department of Systems and Synthetic Biology at Chalmers University of Technology (SysBio) has kindly allowed us to use their facilities during our project and this is where we have conducted our wet lab experiments and where our office has been located. Surrounding us have been plenty of PhD candidates, PhD’s and research engineers who have helped us with various causes. We would especially like to express gratitude to the following people and divisions at the SysBio division:
Abderahmane Derouiche & Yili Natalia Padilla. We sincerely thank research engineers Abderahmane Derouiche & Yili Natalia Padilla for providing us with safety introductions and access to the laboratory facilities. They have also made an effort in correcting and offering improvements to our safety and risk declarations.
Xiaozhi Fu. We thank Xiaozhi Fu for providing us with solutions when working with the ‘improvement of existing part’ project using luciferases (unfortunately we never finished the project).
Cheewin Kittikunapong. We thank Cheewin Kittikunapong for helping and supporting us with the modelling part of our project. He has supported us with adding genes to the RAVEN GEM model. He has also provided us a script which automatically took genes from an excel sheet and use it to our model, which made our work much easier. He also offered advice and discussion sessions on how we could improve our GEM model.
Sysbio. We also thank SysBio for providing us with the MATLAB programs RAVEN and GECKO, which were heavily used in the modelling part of the project.
Design and videos
Design, Wiki, Promotion video, Presentation video
Yazhe Li. We want to aim a big thank you to Yazhe Li for helping us edit the promotion video and adding animations, as well as giving suggestions on how we could film it. Yazhe’s help was very much needed at the time and we appreciate all her help to a great extent. We could not have done it without her! Side note; she makes awesome art, make sure to check out her Instagram.
Alexandra Polyakova. A big thank you is directed to Alexandra Polyakova for the time and great effort she has spent on wiki designs and illustrations. Single handily, she has made almost or all concept art for the wiki, the full home page (excluding the text) and the layout. She has also done several concept arts for the remaining of the pages. Yet again we cannot express gratitude enough to the work that she has put in to our project! She, just as Yazhe Li, also have an Instagram with lots of cool arts, make sure to check it out!
Blended learning: Hugo Landgren. Blended learning is a facility at Chalmers that promotes and facilitates ICT components in teaching. They kindly helped us record our presentation video in their studio as well as helped with all the technical work surrounding it, such as editing. We would like to give a huge thank you to Hugo Landgren, who stayed with us and helped us with recording after normal working hours. Check out their webpage.
Yazhe Li. We want to aim a big thank you to Yazhe Li for helping us edit the promotion video and adding animations, as well as giving suggestions on how we could film it. Yazhe’s help was very much needed at the time and we appreciate all her help to a great extent. We could not have done it without her! Side note; she makes awesome art, make sure to check out her Instagram.
Alexandra Polyakova. A big thank you is directed to Alexandra Polyakova for the time and great effort she has spent on wiki designs and illustrations. Single handily, she has made almost or all concept art for the wiki, the full home page (excluding the text) and the layout. She has also done several concept arts for the remaining of the pages. Yet again we cannot express gratitude enough to the work that she has put in to our project! She, just as Yazhe Li, also have an Instagram with lots of cool arts, make sure to check it out!
Blended learning: Hugo Landgren. Blended learning is a facility at Chalmers that promotes and facilitates ICT components in teaching. They kindly helped us record our presentation video in their studio as well as helped with all the technical work surrounding it, such as editing. We would like to give a huge thank you to Hugo Landgren, who stayed with us and helped us with recording after normal working hours. Check out their webpage.
Eurofins
Funding, Human practices, outreach
Kristofer Hellberg. One of the first persons we contacted in search of funding were Kristofer Hallberg from Eurofins (big sponsor, sponsor page). He, with a cheerful positive reply, said that they with no problem could help sponsor our project with base pairs and genes. He has over the course of the whole project helped us with applying orders to Eurofins and correcting them as we sent them in. Kristofer also came and visited out team and offered advice to our project, which you can read more about on our Human Practices page. Kristofer Hellberg. One of the first persons we contacted in search of funding were Kristofer Hallberg from Eurofins (big sponsor, check out the sponsor page). He, with a cheerful positive reply, said that they with no problems could help providing and sponsor our project with base pairs and genes, and has over the whole project helped us applying orders to Eurofins and correcting them as we sent them in. Kristofer even at one point visited us and offered advice to our project, which you can read more about in our Human Practices page.
Andreas Ebertz. Andreas Ebertz offered great advice on how and what to include on the Eurofins blog, suggesting content changes as well as how to accommodate better with the readers. We are very thankful for his constructive and valuable feedback.
Kristofer Hellberg. One of the first persons we contacted in search of funding were Kristofer Hallberg from Eurofins (big sponsor, sponsor page). He, with a cheerful positive reply, said that they with no problem could help sponsor our project with base pairs and genes. He has over the course of the whole project helped us with applying orders to Eurofins and correcting them as we sent them in. Kristofer also came and visited out team and offered advice to our project, which you can read more about on our Human Practices page. Kristofer Hellberg. One of the first persons we contacted in search of funding were Kristofer Hallberg from Eurofins (big sponsor, check out the sponsor page). He, with a cheerful positive reply, said that they with no problems could help providing and sponsor our project with base pairs and genes, and has over the whole project helped us applying orders to Eurofins and correcting them as we sent them in. Kristofer even at one point visited us and offered advice to our project, which you can read more about in our Human Practices page.
Andreas Ebertz. Andreas Ebertz offered great advice on how and what to include on the Eurofins blog, suggesting content changes as well as how to accommodate better with the readers. We are very thankful for his constructive and valuable feedback.
Nordic iGEM Conference
Human practices, Outreach
Team:Linköping-Sweden. First and foremost, we wish to extend our gratitude to team:Linköping-Sweden for co-hosting NiC together with us. They helped a lot with planning and offering suggestions as well as hosting events during the conference. During the actual event they also helped setting everything up and preparing for the other teams to arrive. More can be read in our collaboration or NiC page.
Judges. We would like to thank Anne Farewell, Linnea Österberg, Patrik Lundström and Ganesh Mohite for judging the competition held during NiC. Not only did their judging chose next year's winners, but they also gave great feedback to all teams who held presentations, including us.
Kent Johansson. When all seemed lost and we could not find suitable locations to host NiC in due to almost everyone at Chalmers being on vacation, Kent came to the rescue and helped us book enough locations. He also made sure that the air condition worked correctly and that we had access where and when needed. He is also a fun guy to talk to!
Team:Linköping-Sweden. First and foremost, we wish to extend our gratitude to team:Linköping-Sweden for co-hosting NiC together with us. They helped a lot with planning and offering suggestions as well as hosting events during the conference. During the actual event they also helped setting everything up and preparing for the other teams to arrive. More can be read in our collaboration or NiC page.
Judges. We would like to thank Anne Farewell, Linnea Österberg, Patrik Lundström and Ganesh Mohite for judging the competition held during NiC. Not only did their judging chose next year's winners, but they also gave great feedback to all teams who held presentations, including us.
Kent Johansson. When all seemed lost and we could not find suitable locations to host NiC in due to almost everyone at Chalmers being on vacation, Kent came to the rescue and helped us book enough locations. He also made sure that the air condition worked correctly and that we had access where and when needed. He is also a fun guy to talk to!
Melt&Marble
Implementation, data analysis, human practices
David Bergenholm. David helped shaping our ideas for the implementation phase, and the future perspective of the project. We had a late interview with David, when our projects intended wet lab part were wrapping up and David offered both data analysis help, and pointers and ideas about how our research could be implemented within industry, thus contributing to our human practices.
David Bergenholm. David helped shaping our ideas for the implementation phase, and the future perspective of the project. We had a late interview with David, when our projects intended wet lab part were wrapping up and David offered both data analysis help, and pointers and ideas about how our research could be implemented within industry, thus contributing to our human practices.
Others
Human practices, Wiki, General Advice, Implementation, Wet lab
Tom Ellis Lab. Thank you for providing us with two of the induction plasmids, the EstrInd and TetON systems.
Albin Ekborg. Last year's team leader of team:Chalmers-Gothenburg, who have offered us much advice during the start of iGEM. He directed us in how to start up the wiki and have quickly answered all questions we sent to him.
Carl Johan Franzen. Before the lecture which we held in the ethics in biotechnology course, the professor responsible for the course, Carl Johan, had a discussion session with us and provided us with much insight regarding ethics and how the project could be applicable or implemented in industry. We sincerely thank him for spending that extra time with us.
Tom Ellis Lab. Thank you for providing us with two of the induction plasmids, the EstrInd and TetON systems.
Albin Ekborg. Last year's team leader of team:Chalmers-Gothenburg, who have offered us much advice during the start of iGEM. He directed us in how to start up the wiki and have quickly answered all questions we sent to him.
Carl Johan Franzen. Before the lecture which we held in the ethics in biotechnology course, the professor responsible for the course, Carl Johan, had a discussion session with us and provided us with much insight regarding ethics and how the project could be applicable or implemented in industry. We sincerely thank him for spending that extra time with us.
Lastly, we wish to one more time thank everyone who have helped us realise this project, and supported us throughout the process!