Team:KU Leuven/Team
BLADEN
As an outgoing and social person, Anthony prefers to accomplish challenging goals in team. He has a background in physics and business, while he is now studying a master’s in bio-nanotechnology. Anthony contributed mainly to the dry lab, wiki and product design parts, where he used his 3D-modelling and problem-solving skills.
Anthony Vorias Co-leader, wiki & dry lab
Motivated to make meaningful contributions to the field of healthcare, Aparna believes healthy people are happy people. As a biomedical engineering student, Aparna was a part of the KU Leuven iGEM team’s dry lab and product design, showcasing her talent for creative solutions.
Aparna Nittur Venkatesh Wet lab
Solving complex puzzles is one of the most exhilarating things to do according to Dries. Luckily iGEM is all about solving interesting biological conundrums. With a background in biochemistry and computer science, Dries was the In Silico support for the KU Leuven iGEM team.
Dries Oome Dry lab
As a biomedical scientist, Fopke looks forward to come up with scientific ideas to make the world a better place. With her knowledge, problem-solving mindset and experience, she mainly contributed to the outreach team. Beyond the love for science, she loves to play music whenever she finds the time.
Fopke Marain Outreach
Illya likes to help and motivate others using the outside of the box thinking and having fun in his life like a child while “breaking the rules”. He was mainly a part of our dry lab activities. Illya joined the team to solve important local and global problems by making science fiction a reality.
Illya Kovaliv Dry lab
To steal all the secrets of mother nature and use them to solve the mysteries of life itself is what keeps this young Bioscience Engineer going! With his previous experiences, Ismaël is a perfect all-rounder. At the weekends you usually find him chilling on his couch with his five cats or turtle Zippy.
Ismaël Bawah Outreach
Laurens is a business engineering student who is attracted by the healthcare industry and in particular the biotech world. He enjoyed combining his passions for biotech and finance, working together with an amazing and motivated team to solve some real-life problems during this iGEM project.
Laurens Van Keerberghen Finance
As part of the iGEM outreach team and with a background in medicine, Marike’s goal is to enhance global health and knowledge in science. She’s continuously excited about working with the interdisciplinary team and expose the world to med-facts of the day.
Marike Dewulf Outreach
With a background in biochem and biotech, Michiel is fascinated by the molecular workings of a cell and how these can be engineered. Michiel is currently pursuing a master’s in education with the hope of combining research and outreach in the future.
Michiel De Coster Outreach captain
With her background in microbiology and synthetic biology, Rosa enjoyed contributing to this year’s iGEM wet lab team. She is fascinated by the natural complexity of biological systems, the more we understand these systems, the better we’re able to engineer them to create solutions to global challenges we face today.
Rosa-Maria Danielle Maattala Wet lab captain
Building a brand-new biotechnological project from the ground up and investigating its far-reaching implications in the world intrigues Sarah the most. On top of that, she is a volunteer at an exchange organization to help prepare the next generation of exchange students
Sarah Vorsselmans Team leader & wet lab
As a pharmacy student specialising in drug development, Saphyra has a passion for healthcare and an interest in synthetic biology. She brought a unique perspective to the team and mainly contributed to our wet lab. Since a lifetime love for being creative has further fuelled the ambition to work in research to help improve people’s lives, she truly enjoyed working on the iGEM project
Saphyra Thonon Wet lab
With his background in Biochem and statistics, Sybren loves the fundamental complexity of biological processes and their experimental unravelling. He loves to convey data graphically in the most aesthetically pleasing way possible. In his next life, he would like to be an octopus.
Sybren De Boever Outreach
As a Biochem and Biotech student, Viktoriia has helped the team bring a product from an idea on paper to a real working biological system. Finding the right tools and methods to bring our ideas to life while working in a team of amazing people from diverse backgrounds is what excites her the most.
Viktoriia Belousova Wet lab
Professors
Prof. Pinheiro is an Associate Professor at KU Leuven since 2018. His research focuses on directed evolution, ancillary technologies and its applications. He is still working to replace every natural enzyme in a cell and to rebuild molecular biology with an XNA flavor. He thinks iGEM students make very good PhD researchers. Outside work he collects nationalities that start with B.
Prof. Vitor Pinheiro Primary PI
Prof. Filip Rolland is an associate professor at the KU Leuven Biology department and has his own research group (Plant Molecular Biology) to further explore the function and regulation of the conserved cellular energy sensor SnRK1 (the homolog of the yeast SNF1 kinase and animal AMPK). Filip is actively involved in teaching and outreach and since March 2021 is the first director of the newly established interdisciplinary KU Leuven Plant Institute (LPI). Family, food and sailing are important passions.
Prof. Filip Rolland Secondary PI
Prof. Thomas leads the Plant Genome Editing group at the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology. He is a toolmaker, focused on the development of genome engineering (CRISPR) technologies in plants. The group creates and modifies modular cloning systems to rapidly assemble new CRISPR vectors for CRISPR screens, base editing, prime editing and homologous recombination. The group works on a variety of plant species from models to crops and also a seaweed.
Prof. Thomas B. Jacobs Secondary PI