Chiara Asselborn

I am the biomedical sciences student of the group, starting my senior year in physiology in September. The thing I like most about iGEM is its multidisciplinary approach. I am hoping that I will learn to incorporate new ways of tackling set projects by learning from my peers.

I teamed up with Elize to think about the human practices side of the project, but I am also helping out with lab work. Especially by tidying, cleaning and labelling everything that comes my way in the lab.

Rikki Guy

I am a student of Informatics (aka Computer Science), with a particular interest in expanding the borders of software development and use. Cue iGEM! I first discovered Synthetic Biology and iGEM last year, via the University's Synthetic Biology Society, and thought it sounded like an amazing thing to do, and something different than the usual old tech internship. My main focus was on developing software tools to help the rest of the team's efforts, resulting in two useable pieces of software.

Sam Ireland

I’m a Biology student, specialising in Biotechnology in my final year now. I’ve been keen to do iGEM since it came up in a lecture in First Year, since it struck me as something that will probably be ‘big’ in the 21st century.

My interests within the team are in the communication of our project. I like explaining concepts, and hopefully I can make some contributions to that aspect of our project. I also have an interest in the modelling side of things, but unfortunately in this case my interest far outstrips my skills so I’ll just be a curious onlooker as far as modelling in this project goes.

In the lab, I worked on the population control sub-project with Philip.

Charlotte Lilley

I’m a fourth year Biotechnology student, with an interest in microbiology and genetics. I joined iGEM because it seemed like the best way to get experience of performing a science project, and and an interesting way to spend a summer. I’m working on allowing bacteria to communicate using sugars.

Elize Petrovska

I'm the Civil Engineer for the team. I chose to do iGEM because the whole idea of engineering living organisms blows my mind a little bit, and I thought it would be interesting to see what is going on in a branch of engineering that is so completely different from the one I'm studying.

Over the summer, I will be looking into Human Practices aspects of our project and Synthetic Biology in general, and exploring the connection of these to other branches of science, technology and, well, life. I will also give my best try to help the Computer Modelling team in producing pretty MATLAB graphs, but we'll see how that goes.

Phillip Rhys-Davies

I am yet another biologist in the team, currently doing my specialisation in applied microbiology. I have been interested in iGEM since the first time I ever heard of it, back in first year. I am thrilled to be part of the Edinburh iGEM team this year, and I'm really looking forward to the giant Jamboree. My scientific interests lie in discovering the natural interactions between microorganisms in the environment, for the purposes of industrial biotechnology. At my free time I enjoy transcribing music and meeting with friends.

Carrie Pickering

Hi, I am Carrie Pickering. I am a 23 year old student at Edinburgh. I am in my second year studying Biology, with an aim of doing my honours in Biochemistry. Before I came to university I was an engineer in the Royal Navy, so iGEM sounded like a good opportunity to mix my engineering background with my current biology studies. In my spare time I am a keen diver and enjoy reading and travelling.

Cesar Pumar-Garcia

I am an MSc student, specialising in Artificial Intelligence, holding a BSc in Informatics Engineering. I deal with computer modelling, both ODEs and agent-based models.

I heard about Synthetic Biology during the first year of my BSc, so I learnt basic biology by myself and did a BSc project consisting in agent-based models of synthetic bacteria and bacteriophages.

My dissertation is in the context of Machine Learning based Automatic Design for Synthetic Biology, so my plan is to find how to apply it to our ODEs models at some point.

Yuma Shino

I first heard of iGEM when I was 16 back in 2009 at a Young Biochemistry Researchers convention. The idea of University teams competing with each other creating genetically modified organisms intrigued me and I participated in a mini-iGEM brainstorming activity as well. 5 years later I am in my 3rd going on to 4th year of my Biotechnology course and joined the iGEM team in order to experience for myself what the iGEM was really like. The process of working together with others for creating and processing ideas is both interesting and enlightening as well as deeply fulfilling.

Anna Stikāne

I am going into my final year of undergraduate biology, with Honours in Biotechnology. Over the years I have met many wonderful people with various scientific, musical, literary and adventure-hunting interests. This experience has convinced me to say big ‘YES’ to big opportunities such as iGEM. To me, iGEM brings together a chance to do some great biology and a challenge to sharpen my teamwork and communication skills and explore the endless possibilities of collaboration between scientists, engineers and artists. Exciting!

In this project I keep cultivating my love for bacteria by working with such bright and shiny biological objects as GFP and RFP.