Team:Rochester/Attributions

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Attributions

The University of Rochester IGEM team of 2021 would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of everyone who has helped us on our journey. We would not have been able to accomplish this project without their assistance and support. Thank you to...

The Team

• Tiana Salomon, our team leader. She developed the general project idea and design, and was part of the hardware, policy and practice, and wiki teams. She helped design our microfluidic device, modeled it on COMSOL, came up with the method to attach electrodes to said device, and helped build our potentiostat. She also composed documents on best practices for teaching and working with neurodiverse scientists, contacted German newspapers for PR, and translated our video to German and Spanish.


• Anca Frasineanu, our science manager. She was part of the wetlab, modeling, policy and practice, and education teams. She helped guide our overall experimental design, including the development of PCR, RCA, aptamer quantification, and attaching aptamers to rGO. She also reviewed papers for modeling to determine specificity and sensitivity values for our aptamers, as well as working on our reduction and aptamer optimization models. She interviewed several experts with P&P and helped plan our symposium, and also coordinated a variety of education activities like the genetic mystery.


• Tracey Moyston, our lab and safety manager. She was part of the wetlab, modeling, and education teams. She helped guide our experimental design for rGO synthesis, created safety protocols, worked with the Univerisity to secure us lab space, and led the transformation of bacteria to synthesize rGO. For modeling, she was one of the main contributors to the fluid flow model. She also attended almost all education activities, and was responsible for the plasmid activity lesson plans.


• Ena Haseljic, our hardware manager. She was part of the wetlab, hardware, modeling, video, and collaboration teams. For wetlab, she contributed to asymmetric pcr, binding assays, and aptamer quantification. She oversaw and led the microfluidics research and experiments, performed the rGO and GO resistance testing, helped build the potentiostat, modified the electrodes, designed safety protocols, and made designs for hydrophilic filters and electrode covers in Onshape. On the modeling team, she contributed to the fluid flow and reduction models. Ena participated in collaboration presentations, and helped organize our symposium. She prepared a microfluidics lesson plan, translated our videos to Bosnian and Macedonian, and found sponsors at Zimmer and Peacock and among the departments at our University.


• Irina Ter-Ovanesyan, our human practices manager. She was part of the policy and practice, hardware, and video teams. For policy and practice, she organized the symposium, led and organized meetings with experts, initiated our ICU visit, ran our inclusivity initiatives, and developed our entrepreneurship strategy. She helped write the script for our promotion video and assisted in the filming, narration, and editing. For hardware, she researched electrodes, biosensors, and potentiostat, as well as found the protocol to embed electrodes in our device. She also contributed to our journal writeup and narrated our presentation video.


• Blaine Dillingham, our modeling manager. He was part of our modeling, public relations, and fundraising teams, and led our initial brainstorming sessions. He did literature research on levels of biomarkers in blood vs sweat, designed ROC curves to evaluate the predictive power of our model, and developed the equations used to convert our electrical readouts into usable data. He posted some of our team spotlights and updates to our social media accounts.


• Muskaan Vasandani, our software and graphic design manager. She was part of our wetlab, modeling, graphic design/wiki, and fundraising teams. For wetlab, she assisted with bacterial engineering to make rGO, characterization of rGO, and experimental design. She also helped find optimal pcr conditions for our genes, and cloned said genes into our vectors. She designed our team logo, subteam logos, as well as our postcards, shirts, and contributed to the overall design of the wiki. On the modeling team, she worked on the Shewanella metabolic model.


• Amanda Adams, our public relations manager. She was part of our wetlab, public relations, wiki/design, collaboration, and education subteams. For public relations, she made social media posts, press releases, organized our sepsis superhero initiative, and interviewed with the campus times. Her contributions to wetlab include pcr of aptamers and running gels. She gave feedback on wiki design and helped brainstorm ways to organize the wiki. For collaboration, she contributed to our journal article, peer review, and editing our children's book. She also facilitated the transportation of our education team to their activities.


• Adela Yan, our video and collaborations manager. She was part of our wetlab, hardware, video, public relations, collaboration, and education teams. For wetlab, she researched asymmetrical pcr and quantification, ran assymetric PCR and binding assays, and quantified the results. On the hardware team, she worked on attaching electrodes to the microfluidic device, sleeve material research, and microfluidics research. She organized collaboration meetings with other teams, including our regional meetup and presentation practices. She participated in several collaboration projects, inclusing the Maastricht Journal and OSU children;s book. She was responsible for video planning, production, translation, and narratives. She translated our PR posts into Chinese, and helped teach children about being a scientist.


• Daniel Nakamura, our wiki manager. He was part of the wetlab, wiki, and modeling teams. On the wetlab team, he chemically synthesized GO and rGO, transformed bacteria, and negotiated the use of the chemistry department's machines for characterization of rGO. He helped other teams troubleshoot issues with rGO, including aptamer binding and attaching rGO to slides for use in hardware. He led wiki team meetings and coded the wiki, and also contributed to its overall design. On the modeling team, he helped develop the metabolic model and found data for our callibration model.


• Nikol Pritsky, our fundraising manager. She was part of our policy and practice, education, fundraising, and wetlab teams. She worked on our inclusivity initiative, organized fundraisers, and worked with the University to order our reagents and materials. In the lab, she worked on the production of rGO, and ran several experiments to confirm the success of our transformations.


• Maria Schapfel, our education manager. She was part of our wetlab, hardware, wiki/design, education, and collaboration teams. She ran pcr and made stock solutions for wetlab, tested the flow rate of our 3DF printed microfluidic device and helped put GO on electrodes, and she researched different types of microfluidic devices. She developed lesson plans and activities for the education team, as well as organized said activities with various schools, programs, and camps. She worked on the children's book, designed some social media posts, and helped design the wiki.

The Advisors

• Dr. Anne Meyer, our Principal Investigator, for introducing us to IGEM, helping us to develop our project, and providing feedback and logistical support.


• Dr. Alexis Stein, our lab advisor, for supervising our lab work, looking over our experimental designs, and helping us troubleshoot when those experiments didn’t work.


• Dr. Nancy Chen, our modeling advisor, for advising our modeling team, helping us to analyze and manipulate data, and giving us advice on using synthetic biology to inform our models, and vice versa.


• Lynn Sidor, from the Meyer lab, for teaching us lab techniques, proof-reading our write-ups, and helping us troubleshooting experiments.


• Helen Shammas, our hardware teaching assistant, for your guidance of the hardware team and proof-reading our write-ups.


• Minseon Lee, from the Gorbunova, for helping the wetlab team and proof-reading our write-ups.


• Dia Koupantsis, our mentor, for Answering questions about iGEM in general, helping with research during protocol writing for experiements in wetlab and hardware, helping with troubleshooting experiments, helped with general research whenever questions came up, and giving inpout and feedback to all aspects of the project

Wetlab Support

• Dr. David McCamant from the University of Rochester, for giving us free access to his Raman facilities.


• Likun Cai from the McCamant lab, for training and assisting us on the Raman facilities.


• Ram Gona from the Meyer lab at the University of Rochester, for teaching us how to make graphene oxide.


• Melissa Jagrosse and Hannah Disteffen from the Nilsson lab at the University of Rochester, for letting us use their lab’s lyophilizer.


• Dr. Elaine Sia from the University of Rochester, for helping us troubleshoot our PCRs and giving us numerous materials/chemicals.


• The Meyer lab, for giving us access to their lab facilities.


• The University of Rochester biology department, for giving us lab space and support.


• Dr. Benjamin Lehner, from TU Delft University, for his advice on bacterially reducing graphene oxide.


• Emma Moonen, from the Toonder lab at Eidenhoven University of Technology, for her advice on measuring concentrations of biomarkers in sweat.


• The TU Delft IGEM team, for sending us biobrick BBa_K1316012.


• The Bielefeld IGEM team, for sending us biobricks BBa_K1172303 and BBa_K1172306.


• Dr. Benjamin Keitz and Ismar Miniel from the Keitz lab at the University of Texas for sending us the empty PCD8 plasmids and a plasmid containing the mtrA gene.


• Dr. Jeffrey Gralnick from the University of Minnesota for sending us the cymA and mtrComCamtrF knockout strains of S. Oneidensis.


• Seyed Ali Biashad from the Gorbunova & Seluanov Lab at the University of Rochester for providing us with 96 well plates for fluorescence assays.


• New England Biolabs for their generous donations of wetlab reagents.

Hardware Support

• Dr. Cecilia de Carvalho Castro e Silva from Mackenzie Presbyterian University, for her suggestions on monitoring the impedance of our device, the use of silver ink to test resistance, using screen-printed electrodes, and advising our biosensor design.


• Dr. Richard Janissen, from TU Delft University, for his advice on microfluidic and electrode design, and helping us avoid non-specific binding of our biomarkers.


• Jeffrey Beard from the Miller lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center, for his advice on microfluidic design and modeling, 3D printing, and giving us PDMS for our device.


• Dr. Jack Mottley, from the University of Rochester electrical and computer engineering department, for his advice on our potentiostat design and contributing various circuit components.


• Dr. Scott Seidman, from the University of Rochester biomedical engineering department, for his advice on circuit design and contributing a multimeter, oscilloscope, and breadboard.


• Dr. William Jones, from the University of Rochester chemistry department, for his help modifying our screen-printed electrodes and his advice on the use of a three-electrode system and nitrogen flow.


• Dr. James McGrath, from the University of Rochester biomedical engineering department, for his advice on microfluidic design and his contribution of PDMS.


• Dr. Danielle Benoit, from the University of Rochester biomedical engineering department, for her contribution of microfluidics materials.


• Austin Plymill from the Li lab at Northwestern University, for his advice on the potentiostat.


• Dr. Lisa DeLouise from the University of Rochester Medical Center, for her advice on microfluidic design.


• Dr. Antonio Riul Junior from the University of Campinas, for his advice on our electrode setup.


• Dr. Tasnim Fatima, from the University of Mississippi, for her advice on inducing sweat via iontophoresis.


• James Alkins from the University of Rochester fabrication shop, for helping us 3D print our microfluidics molds and helping us with our electrode covers and potentiostat.


• V. Kaye Thomas, Ph.D. from URMC for helping us image the slides with the confocal microscope.

Collaborations

• The Maastricht IGEM team, for discussing our projects and inviting us to participate in their IGEM research journal.


• The Dusseldorf IGEM team, for inviting us to participate in their postcard project.


• The Ohio State IGEM team, for collaborating with us on a children's book about sepsis.


• The Cornell IGEM team, for attending our regional meetup.


• The SUNY Oneonta IGEM team, for attending our regional meetup.


• The Rio-UFRJ Brazil IGEM team, for giving us advice on cyclic voltammetry, impedance, and drop casting.


• The CSMU Taiwan IGEM team, for discussing projects with us.


• The IISER Berhampur IGEM team, for suggesting future directions for our software.


• Beatriz De Las Casas, from the University of Rochester Medical Center pediatric department, for providing feedback on our children's book.

Human Practices Support

• Dr. Ian Barbash from the University of Pittsburgh, for proposing ways we can adjust our device to serve in the Emergency Department and ICU.


• Dr. David Nagel from the University of Rochester Medical Center, for describing the process of treating a sepsis patient.


• Dr. Anthony Pietropaoli, the Director of Medical Intensive Care Unit at the University of Rochester Medical Center, for giving us a doctor's perspective of sepsis, including diagnosis and complications.


• Kate Valcin, the Director of Adult Critical Care Nursing at the University of Rochester Medical Center, for giving us a tour of the ICU, participating in our sepsis symposium, and advising on point-of-care considerations.


• Andrew Eddy, the Co founder of The Untapped and the Neurodiversity Hub, for helping us develop and implement initiatives to support neurodivergent students and scientists.


• Dr. Joan Adamo, the Director for Regulatory Support Services at the University of Rochester, for walking us through the process of obtaining FDA approval.


• Laurie Ackles, the Director of the Spectrum Support Program at Rochester Institute of Technology, for providing us with ways to improve employment opportunities for autistic students.


• Kaitlin Legg, from the University of Rochester CARE center, for adivising us on the resources that neurodivergent students have at the University of Rochester, and how they can be improved.


• Cathy Caiazza, the director of Career Curriculum Initiatives, for advising us on how classes can be made more accessible to neurodivergent students.


• Amy Wight, the director of the Office of Disability Resources at the University of Rochester, for explaining the resources offered by the office.


• David Cota-Buckhout, a career advisor from the University of Rochester, for advising us on the services available to neurodivergent students, and agreeing to implement improvements based on our initiatives.


• Jenny Zhi Zheng, part of the Rochester Institute of Technology Neurodiversity Initiative, for advising us on best practices when working with neurodivergent students.


• Thomas Ledbetter, a masters student at the University of Rochester and part of the Autistic community, for showing us the perspective of a neurodivergent student at the University of Rochester.


• Jill Gress, a Sepsis Alliance Board Member, for speaking at our symposium and advising us on the advocacy portion of our project.

Outreach and Education Support

• Dr. Amber Charlebois, assistant professor at Nazareth College in the chemistry department, for running Nazareth College Science Camp and Stem Girls Rochester and allowing us to run our activities.


• Danielle Lavell, Camp Programs Coordinator at Rochester Museum and Science Center, for allowing us to come into camps to run our activities.


• Dr. Nicholas Hammond, Assistant Director of the Workshop Program in the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Rochester, for helping us to prepare lesson plans for different age-groups, and giving us resources, advice, and feedback on our activities.


• Office of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Rochester, for giving us free shirts to distribute to the students at Stem Girls Roc.


• Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rochester, for giving us stress balls to distribute to the students at Stem Girls Roc.


• The Greene Center for Career Education and Connections at the University of Rochester, for giving us free sunglasses to give to the students at Stem Girls Roc.


• Wilson Commons Student Activities at the University of Rochester, for giving us Silly Putty to give to the students at Stem Girls Roc.


• David T. Kearns Center at the University of Rochester, for giving us free frisbees, landyards, and t-shirts to give to the students at Stem Girls Roc.


• Dr. Eitan Freenberg, assistant director of programming at REJI, for helping us with the approval process to with educate incarcerated individuals about synthetic biology.


• Dr. Anusha Naganathan, for including our lab and project in your biology course and organizing the filming for this. Also for mentoring us when we work with the incarcerated individuals.


• Danielle Daniels, Director of Diversity in STEM at the David T. Kearns Center at the Univeristy of Rochester, for allowing us to create learning modules and teach the Upwards Bound students over the summer.


• Margaret Chefalo, STEM coordinator at Exploration Elementary Charter School for Science & Technology, for incorporating our activities into your science curriculum.


• Margaret Leyden, MS, Director of Life Enrichment & Best Practices at The Highlands at Pittsford, for allowing us to come in and present our project and teach about synthetic biology to the residents at the Highlands at Pittsford.


• Krystal Osei, Interim Girl Experience Manager of the Girl Scouts of Western New York, for helping to coordinate our activities with the troops and allowing us to do our science activities with the Girl Scouts.


• Mary Judge Diegert, MS, Assistant Director at the Center for Disability and Education at the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester, for providing us with resources to help make our activities assessble for all of our students.

Modeling Support

• Dr. Jason Heikenfeld, Professor at the University of Cincinnati, for helping us find a correlation between cytokine levels in blood and sweat, and also advising us on the negligibility of the lag time between them.


• Dr. Anthony Pietropaoli from the University of Rochester Medical Center, for advising us on how quickly biomarker concentrations rise after the onset of sepsis.


• Dr. Ian Barbash, from the University of Pittsburgh Deptartment of Medicine, for advising us on how our sensor could be as useful as possible to physicians, which guided our readout to show a statistical analysis of the biomarkers, rather than just their levels.

Other Contributors

• Canva, because our graphic design team used Canva Pro to design all logos.


• Jessica Baldwin, for helping our fundraising team plan our 5k and for building our crowdfunding page.


• Meghan Martin, a member of the 2020 Rochester IGEM team, for providing us with last year's press releases and givng advice on our public relations timeline.


• Dr. Moriana Garcia, the librarian for Biomedical Engineering, Biology, and Brain and cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester, for running a workshop on reading scientific papers for us.