Team:Crete/Attributions
The team
Maria Theodora Vitiadou: Biology student and our team's project leader. Throughout the project, she played a crucial role in planning and coordinating the operations of the entire team. She supervised the project's development process, the creation of Human Practices, financial operations, and the Wet Lab brainstorming sessions. She publicly represented our team in public at the 27th Scientific Society of Hellenic Medical Students Congress and conducted interviews with experts throughout the year, analyzing our project from the standpoint of Human Practices.
Stavroula Bantra:
5th year medical student in the University of Crete. Her work was mainly focused on Human Practices, where she coordinated several events aiming public engagement and science education programs adjusted for younger children. Moreover, she was in charge of keeping a thorough record of our team’s meetings and events and creating content for our social media platforms as well as posters and leaflets for our team’s events. Finally, Stavroula
Maria Ntouni:
is currently enrolled in her third year of Biology at the University of Crete. Her contribution in the fundraising sector was meant to be the cornerstone for the team's wellbeing. Her primary tasks were communicating with potential sponsors and resolving their bureaucratic issues. In addition, also being a member of the AIESEC foundation, she played a crucial role supervising the development of our project towards some of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as participating in the writing of the Sustainability special prize.
George Angelakis:
4th year Biology undergraduate student.
George has engaged in administrating the "communications policy" of the team and of its social media accounts. Moreover he created and administrated the Braille side project as well as the corresponding website. He drafted various letters and proposals to local and national governing bodies. He was also in charge of the team's collaborations throughout the year. He was the chief editor in the team's blog and also drafted the mock chapter for the biology textbook that was presented. Moreover he arranged and carried out various meetings throughout the year. In addition to that he participated in educational programmes(Namely Erasmus+ in Thrace). He also assisted in funding through online media and assisted in proofreading the texts that were uploaded in social media and the team's wiki page. Last but not least he co-wrote and co-directed all the videos of the team throughout the year.
Marios Matsis:
Biology students in the 3rd year of education. Marios worked from the beginning as a wet lab member. Him and the other 4 members of the team were responsible for the brainstorming at the beginning of the year, the research in order to evaluate if the project that was decided for our team was feasible and finally the actualization of making an edible vaccine in the lab. Furthermore, meeting with specialized academic people, writing for the wiki page and supplying the lab with the suitable material after research were secondary obligations.
Celia Petriki:
third-year student in Biology Department, University of Crete. Celia was instrumental in brainstorming and gathering data to establish whether the project chosen for our team was viable, conducting research to find solutions to the various problems that emerge, and finally manufacturing an edible vaccine in the lab. She furthermore co-organized the iGEM Meet up: Greek edition, an online conference hosted by five Greek iGEM teams that featured presentations on topics like synthetic biology, entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, and more, as well as interactive workshops and open conversations with alumni and iGEMers. As a coordinator, she had several responsibilities, including finding and communicating with potential speakers, as well as composing the film through which her team would be presented.
Evagoras Christodoulou:
6th (Final) year Medical undergraduate student. Evagoras first assignment as Head of Human Practices (HP) was to coordinate, set time frames and check every individual task of the HP department. He created and supervised a SWOT analysis for the Fundraising department of the team and a Risk and Safety analysis for the Wet-Lab department to help them brainstorm and organise their thoughts throughout the competition. He studied and learned everything there is to know about GDPR to help his team work under data protection and privacy EU law. He struggled for months with the Ethics Committee of the University of Crete to create a questionnaire, two Focus Groups and several consent forms but due to lack of experience in developing social studies and lack of time, things didn't go as planned. However, the knowledge gained from this incident will be passed down to other teams in order to overcome this obstacle. Evagoras was also constantly trying to communicate with quite a few professors and scientists aiming to interview them and collaborate with them. Thus improving the project by broadening our theoretical knowledge and ideas. He arranged a discussion-debate with GMOs as the main subject to educate the local community and inform them at the same time that our project is not considered a GMO. Furthermore, he helped his team members in social media and promotion video with editing and by writing some parts for the wiki page, mostly the GDPR and GMOs in biosafety and some others in integrated and contributions.
Anastasia Toska:
3th year Biology undergraduate student. Anastasia's initial responsibilities were focused on the laboratory part. She was actively involved in the preliminary stages of brainstorming ideas to find different projects until the team came up with the final one, which was the ideal one.She attended meetings with the professors and team members on the problems and solutions of making an edible vaccine that were derived from the literature that the whole group was studying. In addition, she participated in conversations with qualified academic people in order to take into account all the relevant procedures that mainly concerned the part of handling mice in the laboratory. With the knowledge and information gained, she created a guide for the management of laboratory mice to inform and prepare undergraduate students. She also carried out an outreach activity about the project in a children's creative activity centre in order to bring younger people in contact with the science of biology and to inform them about SARS-CoV-2 and the project.
Tzoneurakis Ioannis-Rafael:
Undergraduate biology student and the man behind the modeling of our project. He evaluated the validity of candidate protein constructs using computational modeling. To this end, he used DeepMind's AlphaFold2 protein folding model in conjunction with the Chimera molecular graphics software for prediction evaluation.
Antonios Ntroumpogiannis:
Master’s student in Computer Science at University of Crete. Antonis is head of the dry lab as well as part of the team’s fundraising team. Antonis’ initial responsibilities regarding fundraising were searching for a variety of potential sponsors as well as making a first contact with them via email. He designed and developed the team’s website from the ground up along with the team’s blog. Part of the site’s development was resolving all bureaucratic issues in order to have both sites hosted in the University’s domain. He also developed a GUI Braille translator, which automatically translated several languages to braille as part of the Braille side project. Last but not least, he was responsible for the design and development of the team’s wiki page.
Paputsakis Mixalis:
Graphic Designer and the man behind the screens. He was a member of our public relations subteam, coordinating our social media material and used these channels to share project updates, expose our staff to the public, and organize Q&A sessions, among other things.
Stefanos Karagiannakis:
3rd year Biology undergraduate student. Stefanos is a member of iGEM Crete’s fundraising department. He was tasked, along with the rest of the fundraising team, to search for and approach possible sponsors for the teams 2021 iGEM project. As a member of the fundraising team he had the responsibility to take care of all the bureaucratic issues regarding the procedure of accepting the donations and transferring of the donated money. Stefanos also was responsible for the registry of our team's parts in the Parts Registry website. For the completion of the task above coordination between different members from our Wet Lab team and him was needed in order to track and document the different biological parts that were used in our project. Last but not least in the early days of our team’s journey through the iGEM 2021 competition, his insight was crucial in the brainstorming sessions for the decision of our project.
Sotiris Marinos: Biology student and the team’s Head of Wet Lab. He played a crucial role in the early brainstorming sessions, actively helping the team to create the project. When the team finally began the experiments he was responsible for all of the experimental procedures, as well as, analyzing the results. He also helped the team by creating scientific correct presentations which helped to publicly explain our project. Last but not least he acted as a “link” , gathering all of the useful information from the project’s PIs , analyzing them and explaining to the rest of the team.
Nikos Falalakis: A 3rd year biology undergraduate student. As a member of the wet lab he mainly focused on the laboratory procedures, as well as the brainstorming. He played a vital role both implementing and optimizing the project. He also interacted with the dry lab team by both delivering and evaluating data for project modelling.
Stavros Skrepetos: Master’s Student in Materials Science at the University of Crete. Stavros is head of the Fundraising Team. Along with other team members, he coordinated and searched for potential sponsors for the squad. He got in touch with most of the sponsors as a part of the fundraising team for approaching and closing deals. Last but not least, Stavros assisted with the wiki for the team. He completed the team section and took part in the credit section.
Advisors and supervisors
Nikos Arapitsas: MSc student in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine, who led an extensive training workshop for the Wet Lab subteam that covered fundamental molecular biology techniques. He supervised all of the lab procedures and actively helped in evaluating the project’s results.
Manthos Sertedakis:
MSc student in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine, who helped us create our construct and he helped us on the design and execution of agroinfiltration.
Mr Dionysis Papamatheakis:
MSc student in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine, he advised us upon experiments in higher vertebrates and guided us prior to writing our animal use form.
Dr. George Sourvinos:
for his willingness to help us as a virologist through many meetings and discussions. His feedback was instrumental in shaping our project and troubleshooting important details of it.
Dr. George Papadoganos:
PhD candidate at the University of Crete, who supervised the protocoles around immunization tests in mice.
Mrs Tsoukatou Despoina:
Special Research Assistant and Supervising Veterinarian, lectured us about the care, and nutrition of laboratory mice. She would also be the one conducting the blood collection from the submandibular vein.
Dr Vasiliki Michalopoulou:
PhD student at the IMBB-FORTH, for her contribution regarding the designing & cloning of our DNA Construct.
Dr Electra Gizeli:
professor at the University of Crete and IMBB-Forth, who gave us her valuable feedback on our project.
Dr Pantelis Topalis:
PhD professor in Bioinformatics, for helping us conduct the initial team interviews and providing valuable feedback on our first steps as a team.
Dr Panagiotis Moschou:
Associate Molecular Plant Physiology Professor, for his valuable feedback regarding the transient expression we are using in our project.
Dr Glykeria Mermigka:
Postdoctoral Fellow at the IMBB-FORTH, for her valuable help regarding the creation of our DNA construct and execution of the Golden Gate Cloning.
Dr George Zakinthinos:
Associate Professor, Department of Food Technology, Technological Educational Institute of Peloponneseand and
Dr Alexandros Papachatzis Professor in Fruit Tree Growing (Pomology), University of Thessaly, Department of Agricultural Agrotechnology. Since they had previously researched a topic similar to our project, they gave us vital guidelines regarding the way of administration of such a vaccine.
Dimitra Tsakiri: PhD candidate at the University of Crete, Department of Biology, for her contribution in getting the confocal results.
Dr Chalepakis and Dr Mitraki professors at the University of Crete, who gave us their feedback regarding the alternative iGEM projects we had, and helped us choose the best one.
Dr Ioannis Pavlidis:
Assistant Professor at University of Crete, Department of Chemistry, who fully supported our team before it was even fully formed!
Dr George Chamilos:
Associate Professor of Parasitology, provided us with criteria for evaluating our paper articles around microorganisms, as part of our project.
Dr Kriton Kalantidis:
Associate Professor and the University of Crete, Department of Biology, for advising us around the biotechnological part of our project.
Dr Alexandros Papachatzis Professor in Fruit Tree Growing (Pomology), University of Thessaly, Department of Agricultural Agrotechnology. Since they had previously researched a topic similar to our project, they gave us vital guidelines regarding the way of administration of such a vaccine.
Outsourced assistance
Human practices
Mr George Karapanagos: Public Health Data Analyst at MSF OCBA, for his outstanding willingness to meet with us on various occasions and meaningfully assist us with our project implementation. Moreover we’d like to thank him for the information and material he provided in regards to the status quo in developing countries
Mrs Olga Berdiaki: a preschool graduate educator that gave us vital advice on how to properly interact with such a young audience during our educational program at the Natural History Museum of crete.
Dr Manolis Stratakis: Professor at the University of Crete, Department of Chemistry, for meeting and discussing with us in the framework of our “Excellence in Another Area” actions.
Dr Giannis Dalezios: a member of the Research Ethics and Deontology Committee, who was kind enough to prepare a thorough presentation on ethics and deontology for us and for being available to engage in conversation about ethics any time we faced a major dilemma.
Arts & Crafts
Mr Ilias Koutsos: Undergraduate Business Management student at the hellenic Mediterranean University, for kindly providing his services in co-producing, shooting, co-directing and editing all of iGEM’s videos throughout the year
Mr George Kavvalos: Graphic Designer, for creating our team’s logo as well as various graphics that we needed throughout the year.
Mr Christos Karras: Material Science Undergraduate Student, for providing his photographing equipment and taking our team’s first photos.
Mr Zac Pervolarakis: Computer Science Undergraduate student, for animating our wiki video.
Finance
Panagiotis Kelefiotis: PhD Candidate at the University of Groningen, with previous experience in financial management of self-funding teams, who guided us on how to build our financial agenda and communicate the best way with our sponsors.
Gousis Michael: Undergraduate Business Management student at the Hellenic Mediterranean University, for teaching us the Research and Development Field and helping us finalize our project’s proposed implementation.
Ambassadors
Mrs Athina Milona: European iGEM Ambassador, who guided us regarding the organisation of the iGEM Meetup: Greek Edition.
Mr Leandros Tsiotos: European iGEM Ambassador and Dissemination & Outreach Officer from OMIC-Engine, for his extremely helpful advice, support and feedback on the entirety of our project throughout the year.
Individuals
Mrs Maria Kosmidou: and the rest of the iGEM Thessaloniki team for meeting and discussing with our team about our projects and giving us their opinions, especially at the beginning in regards to our project ideas.
Mrs Ellie Malkopoulou and Mrs Theodora Tzoumanika: for their outstanding hospitality during our Erasmus+ participation and the feedback they provided in regards to our project.
Mrs Marianna Stagaki and Mr Prodromos Papadopoulos: Undergraduate Biology Students, for participating in the role of speakers during our GMOs Debate.
Mrs Theodora Koutsaki: for inviting us to the first Agia Pelagia TEDx event that was unfortunately cancelled because of the pandemic.
Mr Vasilis Gisakis: who, as an agronomist, provided us with guidelines in regards to our bibliography research.
Press
Mrs Vicki Kourlimpini, Mrs Eutixia Konstantinidou, Mrs Irene Roumbeidou, Mr Paulos Margaritis, Mrs Maria Karaoulani, Mrs Nikos Angelakis and Mrs Evi Pantazopoulou journalists who were interested in our project, wrote articles or shot television reports about it and helped us reach even more people through visibility in the press.
Sponsors-Institutions
For their support in equipment, personnel, consumables and other paraphernalia throughout the year: Univeristy of Crete, Foundation for Research and Technology- Hellas (FORTH),
Financial sponsors: University of Crete, Plastika Kritis S.A, Foundation for Research and Technology- Hellas (FORTH), Pfizer Hellas, Crete University Press and all the anonymous Crowdfunding supporters!
Financial sponsors: University of Crete, Plastika Kritis S.A, Foundation for Research and Technology- Hellas (FORTH), Pfizer Hellas, Crete University Press and all the anonymous Crowdfunding supporters!
