Team:Aalto-Helsinki/Team

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Team

We are a team of nine students from different fields of expertise.

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About the Team
Members
Advisors and Mentors
Attributions
Sponsors

Photo © Tanja Maria

The Team

We are a skillful and persistent group of nine Finns. We started as a group of students who didn't really know each other, assuming that we are going to spend our summer studying synthetic biology with strange collegues. We ended up getting a bunch of new friends and (in addition to studying synthetic biology) we just might have spent one of the best summers of our lives.

Our group is interdisciplinary and comes from University of Helsinki and Aalto University; the two big universities located in the capital of Finland, Helsinki. We have expertise in many different fields ranging from genetics to product development and from computer science to food technology.

Here's the link to our Official Team Profile.

Here's our amazing team! From left to right: Niklas Itänen, Laura Laakso, Lassi Vapaakallio, Otto Lamminpää, Oskari Vinko, Martina Ikonen, Mikko Laine, Minttu Salmela, Pietu Roisko.

Team Members

You can find very different personalities in our nine-member team! The members of Aalto-Helsinki introduce theirselves!

Oskari Vinko

Aalto University
University of Helsinki

A third year student in engineering physics and mathematics and a second year student in molecular biosciences. Oskari dreams of a career as a gene engineer and aims to combine computational methods, mathematics and biology.

Oskari
Minttu

Minttu Salmela

Lab Rat

Aalto University

Official stuff

A fourth-year Chemical Engineering student majoring in bio and food technology.

I am the second half of our lab team and I have been in charge of the wet lab with Martina. I have spent most of my days in the lab working with Biobricks and our dear bacteria. I am also the Travel Manager of our team so I have been in charge of all the things related to Boston.

In the beginning of the summer I knew barely anything about gene technology, let alone synthetic biology, so it has been amazing to learn a whole bunch of new things and actually getting to do stuff in the lab on our own.

One hightlight of my summer was when we got our first sequencing results and we finally had concrete proof that we had actually managed to ligate pieces of DNA together. Before that we just had to have faith in ourselves and hope things were going the right way. Now I know why some people say that science is like a religion!

Cool stuff

Music, puppies, travelling, a good cup of tea and sleeping in on a Sunday morning are my favourite things in the world.

Random Fun Fact: I can stand on my head.

Laura Laakso

University of Helsinki

A third year student of molecular biosciences interested in genetics and bioinformatics with a minor in computer science. Art has always been an important part of her life.

Laura
Lassi

Lassi Vapaakallio

Cool Title

University of Helsinki
Official stuff

A third year Computer Science student with 2 years of biotech background.

My main responsibility was programming various software tools to help research and lab work, as well as developing our website and wiki. I also racked up a surprising amount of lab hours considering I had last worked in the lab 3 years ago.

I also did a bunch of bioinformatics. I found myself playing around with Geneious a lot, making primers, analysing sequencing results and building things virtually before we assemble them in the lab.

The coolest thing during the summer was making BioBrick Seeker and seeing what can be achieved by a group of students in a field that we barely knew anything about.

Cool stuff

Random fun fact: I’m the 36th best pinball player in Finland.

I’m kind of a huge game enthusiast. I love spending time with people playing games, whether it’s card games, board games, pinball, table-top RPGs or all kinds of computer games.

I also play all sorts of drums.

Pietu Roisko

Aalto University

Pietu is a second year student in the School of Electrical Engineering, with a major in bionics and minor in product development. Specializing in medical technology. He also has skills and enthusiasm for fundraising and marketing.

Pietu
Martina

Martina Ikonen

Aalto University

A third year student majoring in food techonology in the chemical engineering degree program. She has bachelor's thesis on Biobrick and she's very excited in using them in practice. She's interested in applications in the environment, nutrition and medicine.

Otto Lamminpää

University of Helsinki

A second year physics student with love for mathematics as well as chemistry. Applying mathematics to biology and mathematical modeling are of great interest.

Otto
Niklas

Niklas Itänen

University of Helsinki

A second year student in theoretical physics and mathematics. Interested in mathematical applications in physics and biology as well as number theory and mathematical analysis.

Mikko Laine

Aalto University

Mikko is a fifth year student in chemical engineering and jack of all trades, majoring in bioprocess technology and minoring in industrial management. He's interested in biochemistry, gene technology and bioinformation as well as communication and influencing.

Mikko

Advisors and Mentors

Attributions

Sponsors

We want to thank our sponsors for all the support they've given us. In the beginning there was no guarantee that we'd get any support at all. Even if we expected that we might get some support, the amount of people offering their help far exceeded our expectations.

From the following list you can find all our partners, what/who they are and what they did for/with us. A big thank you to all!

Aalto University

"Aalto University is a new multidisciplinary university, where science and art meet technology and business." (http://www.aalto.fi/en/)

Aalto University helped us in multiple ways. They offered us great mentors and a work environment where you could ask anything from the experienced lab people around you. They gave us space in the lab to work in, they supported us us financially, they ordered us reagents when we needed. Synthesizing our gene switch wasn't a problem either. It feels like we couldn't have done this, or at least this would have been a severely harder project, without Aalto.

Aaltoes

"Aaltoes stands for Aalto Entrepreneurship Society, Europe’s largest and most active student run entrepreneurship community." (http://aaltoes.com/)

Aaltoes helped Aalto-Helsinki by offering us the possibility to participate in Summer of Startups, "a 9-week full-time program which is targeted for ambitious people to help them get started with their own businesses." The program made us view our project from business point of view and gave the opportunity to learn how to talk science to business people.

University of Helsinki

"The University of Helsinki is one of the best multidisciplinary research universities in the world. The high-quality research carried out by the university creates new knowledge for educating diverse specialists in various fields, and for utilisation in social decision-making and the business sector." (http://www.helsinki.fi/university/)

The University of Helsinki offered us a lab space to work in (even though we ended up spending our summer in the labs offered by Aalto University) and also supported us financially.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

"VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is the biggest multitechnological applied research organisation in Northern Europe. VTT provides high-end technology solutions and innovation services." (http://www.vtt.fi/?lang=en)

Bartek, our mentor and an irreplaceable helper in the lab, works at VTT. They also let us use their equipment when we needed something: we made quite a few measurements in their labs!

Heureka, The Finnish Science Centre

"Heureka introduces the public to science and technology in an engaging and interactive way. Visitors can experience the joy of discovery through spectacular exhibitions, planetarium films and events. Located in the Tikkurila area of Vantaa, Heureka first opened its doors to the public in 1989. Heureka is one of Finland's most pupular recreational centres, attracting an average of nearly 300,000 visitors each year." (http://www.heureka.fi/en)

Heureka is planning a synthetic biology event with us. The event will be held during the spring 2015. We'll turn bacteria into superheroes!

ERASynBio

"ERASynBio is an ERA-NET from the seventh framework program for the development and coordination of Synthetic Biology in the European Research Area. This ERA-NET started on January 1, 2012, with a duration of 3 years." (http://www.erasynbio.eu/)

ERASynBio helped us with the Jamboree registration fees.

Geneious

"First released in 2005, Geneious is one of the world’s leading bioinformatics software platforms, used by over 2,500 universities and institutes and commercial companies in more than 65 countries." (http://www.geneious.com/)

Geneious let us use their program for free during our project. It was amazing to notice how a program can really speed up the research!

Biotech Start-Up Management

"Biotech Start-Up Management (BSUM) is a one-stop service provider for life science ventures. BSUM expert services help you with all the steps from innovation management to goal oriented international business development." (http://www.bsum.fi/)

BSUM helped us by providing their thoughts about our business plan and ideas.

Flowdock

"Flowdock is a team collaboration app for desktop, mobile and web. It allows you to work on things that matter, be transparent and solve problems across tools, teams and time zones." (http://www.flowdock.com/)

Flowdock let us use their application for free. It's really amazing how such a simple tool can make your life so much easier. You can chat, share documents and images, and access it all on the phone and computer. Even when the team worked separately, even in different countries, Flowdock made it possible to keep the team together and working effectively!

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