Team:Macquarie Australia/OurTeam/Attributions

Attributions & Sponsors

The Macquarie University 2014 iGEM team would like to thank Macquarie University for all the support in terms of laboratory facilities, materials and support personnel. We would especially like to thank everyone from the Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences (CBMS) for their ongoing encouragement and interest in our project.

Students

The iGEM team 2014 was composed primarily of 3rd year undergraduate students from the Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences at Macquarie University. Team members this year had a variety of talents - ranging from legal expertise to outstanding business aptitude. Robert and Nadia combined their lab skills with outstanding business acumen to contribute excellently to both our dry and wet lab teams. Mitchell and Chris worked on the team’s wiki and also helped with the day to day workings of the wet lab team. Will, Ahmed, Sunny, Eddie and Leah spearheaded the laboratory work, whilst Amit and Alice jointly worked on marketing, communications and team management. On the other hand, Dean used his expertise in Mathematics to singularly tackle the team’s Modelling project. Overall, the combination of such diverse talents coupled with an enthusiasm and willingness for hard work made for a very strong and well functional team.

Instructors and Advisors

Our team would like to give a special thank you to all our advisors and instructors. They provided us with continuous support, contributed towards ideas and facilitated a safe laboratory environment. Dr. Louise Brown for her constant presence at the labs and advice on every aspect of the project starting from groundwork to communication. Associate Professor Robert Willows, for his precious advice regarding the laboratory work and interpretation of results. Professor Ian Paulsen for always being there when needed, and also for accompanying us to Boston. Last but certainly bot the least, Professor Nicolle Packer for her excellent contribution towards the team’s finances. Their guidance and feedback allowed us to progress through the tough stages in our project, and kept us together in the worst of times.

Also a big thank you to Rijata Sharma (Rani) for being the sunshine in our labs and keeping us motivated when things were not going as planned. Elizabeth Daniel for being the lab witch that she is and helping us navigate the confusing landscape of all sorts of protocols. Michael Gibbs and Dominic Logel for answering the most outlandish questions regarding the principles of Synthetic Biology and Chlorophyll biosynthesis all the time. Edward Moh for constantly keeping us busy and pushing us to perform our absolute best whilst supervising us at lab around the clock.

Additional Contributors

Thank you to Yagiz Aksly from MQ Synbionet (Macquarie University’s first Synthetic Biology student group). Yagiz helped with the initial planning of the ‘So You Think You Can Synthesize’ contest. Yagiz has been a part of iGEM and synthetic biology since his involvement with the first Macquarie iGEM team back in 2010, we are very grateful for his advice this year as well. We would also like to thank Natasha Todesco, a graphic designer who volunteered to help us with our team logos and team t-shirts. Natasha has her Diploma in Graphic Design and her Advanced Diploma in Illustration, you can view her personal works at Wysp. Finally, a big thank you to the technical staff of the CBMS Teaching Laboratory, in particular Thi Huynh for her advice on safe and efficient usage of laboratory materials.

Sponsors

One of our Gold Sponsors Bioplatforms Australia prides itself on innovation and collaboration through investments in world-class infrastructure and expertise. We’d like to thank Bioplatforms Australia for helping us finance this project.

Biomolecular Frontiers Research Centre situated at Macquarie University is another one of our major sponsors. Their motto is bringing together national and international researchers in the molecular and cellular analysis of living systems. True to their motto, they were instrumental in helping us finance our research. We’d also like to thank Labcyte and Beckman Coulter for their financial support.