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Team:Wageningen UR/team/members
From 2014.igem.org
The BananaGuard team consists of twelve banana-loving students from Wageningen University who dedicated their whole summer to explore the world of synthetic biology and fight the Panama disease. We combine the strengths of our different backgrounds, studies and home-countries to excel in the lab and even exceed the sum of our combined powers. We are devoted. We are dedicated. We are BananaGuard: Students with a-peel!
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Students
Wen Wu
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Wen (Wenny) is in the second year of her Master in Biotechnology. She is our team captain and apart from that she keeps herself very busy by helping out in the Sponsor, Wiki and Human Outreach team. In the lab Wenny works on the expression of fungal growth inhibitors in Pseudomonas putida. Next to those official tasks she made it her duty to give motivational speeches from time to time. Wenny struggles with a severe genetically based alcohol intolerance and total unawareness if irony and sarcasm. Additionally, Wenny thinks she is taller than all twelve-year olds but statistically speaking, she is taller than a few twelve year olds.
How will we remember Wen:
“Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on rainbows.”
Bob van Sluijs
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Bob, Bobo or Robert (he isn’t quite sure if he likes that one, though) just finished his Bachelor in Biotechnology and will start his Master in Biotechnology this fall. Within the team he works on the modeling of the kill-switch and he is one of our two PR-persons. With Bobo around it never gets boring. He entertains the team with anecdotes about his time as a diving instructor in Australia or awkward situations during dates. If you meet Bobo at the Jamboree ask him for a funny story, he will not disappoint.
How will we remember Bob:
*Dancing and singing:*
“I’m a banana, I’m a banana,
peel the banana, peel the banana,
go bananas, go, go bananas!”
Jeremy van Baalen
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Jeremy is in his second year of his Master in Biotechnology. Within the team he works on the construction of a fusaric acid inducible promoter and he is one of our two PR-persons. You might have already made his acquaintance if you follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Next to his official tasks on the team, Jeremy is also responsible for the music choice in the lab. With the love for the music he spends his free time working as a DJ. We know Jeremy as a very kind and caring person who has a funny flaw: telling very inappropriate jokes, which luckily for him, make everybody laugh.
How will we remember Jeremy:
*Random conversation* ...“That's what she said!”
“Jeremy, that’s creepy.”
“Yeeeeezzzzz! (=yes)”
Teresa Robert Finestra
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Coming from the Catalan region of Spain, Teresa came to the Netherlands to do her Master’s degree in Biotechnology. Having worked in an anti-doping lab, she was on the front line of making professional sports a little bit fairer. She has shown exceptional grace playing tennis and squash given the difficulty of staying balanced (tiny feet and all). Teresa works on the horizontal gene transfer inhibition project using her amazing transformation skills to obtain a viable product. Don’t be too shy to say hello to Teresa at the jamboree. With her outgoing personality we are sure she would be more than happy to talk about the project.
How will we remember Teresa:
“Nee, Jeremy, nee!” (Nee is Dutch for no.)
Rik van Rosmalen
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Rik just finished his Bachelor in Molecular Life Sciences and will start his master this fall. Within the team he works on … well, everything. Officially, Rik is responsible for fusaric acid resistance within the biological control agent and works on the Wiki and the Sponsor team but he is involved in almost all projects and teams to a certain degree. Seemingly always patient and friendly, Rik will wait for two months for samples from Taiwan and still gets his work done. It’s magic! If you want to piss Rik off use a butter knife to chop tomatoes, but apart from that there is nothing you can do to get him off balance.
How will we remember Rik:
"Rik, how do you do that?”
“Like this.”
“IT’S MAGIC!”
Max van der Ploeg
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Max just finished his Bachelor thesis in Biology this summer but in between got thrilled with synthetic biology and will start the Biotechnology master’s program this winter. Within the team he works on the kill-switch system. The circuit of this system is strongly influenced by Max’s enthusiasm for the genetic toggle switch. He presented the first version of the kill switch to the team drawn on a piece of napkin, because paper was not at hand when he had his flash of inspiration. Max is full of energy and his laughter is contagious. In Boston just follow the most funniest, loud and the most cheerful laughter and say hi to Max.
How we will remember Max:
*recording of the laughter*
Michiel Herpers
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Michiel just finished his Bachelor in Biotechnology and will start his master’s degree this fall. Within the team he works on the kill-switch system. Next to that he is one of our two secretaries. He possesses mad transformation and Microsoft Paint skills and takes great pride in both. Michiel is a very neat person and puts a lot of effort into his appearance. Sometimes he surprises us randomly wearing the banana suit in the lab.
How will we remember Michiel:
“Oh, that is a great song!”
“Michiel, the 90's just called and they want their bad music taste back.”
Miguel Correa Marrero
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Miguel (Miguelito) is an enthusiastic team member from the Canary Islands and is in his second master year in Bioinformatics. Within the team he works on a model that describes the inhibition of horizontal gene transfer. Since the start of the project, he was a big supporter of the idea to save the bananas, which includes the daily wearing of banana-yellow shirts with monkeys on them. For lunch he enjoys his daily rice salad, although the definition of rice salad is still somewhat ambiguous.
How will we remember Miguel:
“It’s a banana PLANT, not a tree!”
Marlène Birk
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Marlène is our lovely and politically correct plant biotechnologist from Germany. Within the team she works on the kill-switch and is part of the Sponsor team. Furthermore, she is responsible for most of the work done in the greenhouse, which is – given her background – the place she feels most comfortable. Outside of the lab, she is quick with a witty response or movie reference and she keeps everyone on their toes. When you leave her alone with your computer with your Facebook still logged in, she will probably mess it up by changing your profile picture, date of birth or fill your wall with embarrassing posts.
How will we remember Marlène:
(in angry German accent) “Ven ze PlasmiT is intergraitet in to ze organismus, ze hoel grup vil be ful of joy.”
Kevin Hof
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Kevin just finished his Bachelor in Biotechnology with a minor in Economics and is starting his Master in Biotechnology this fall. Within the team, Kevin works on the double dependent plasmid system that avoids horizontal gene transfer and he is the head of our Sponsor team. He knows his way around the lab and if you can stand his smug smile he will always help you with his expertise. Explaining difficult things in a very simple, understandable way is one of his strongest points followed by getting whatever he wants with face expression of a cute lost puppy.
How will we remember Kevin:
Marlène: “Oh sweety, listen....”
Kevin: “NO! Don’t ‘Oh sweety’ me!”
Tjaša Marolt
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Tjaša (Ti-asha) is our Slovenian import currently in the second year of her master in Biotechnology. Her tasks in the team are the expression of chitinase in P. putida and the addition of the necessary fluffiness to our wiki page. Originally, Tjaša joined the Wiki team to contribute her creative talents but soon developed a passion for coding. Next to those tasks she is responsible for the lab-safety and to keep the spirits up by feeding the whole team “super sweet” pastries and explaining the “super exciting” features of SnapGene to everyone who couldn’t leave the room fast enough. Tjaša’s newest passion is the 3D-printer she saw a few weeks ago and we are looking forward to hearing about it every lunch.
How will we remember Tjaša:
“Uuuu! Me likey, likey!”
Walter de Koster
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Walter just finished his Bachelor in Biotechnology and will start his Master this fall. Within the team he works on the metabolic model of the anti-fungal production and is active within the sponsor team. Even though Walter is one of our modelers he didn’t completely leave his laboratory background behind. When there wasn’t enough data in literature to validate his model he went right to the lab. Apart from this he’s always happy to grab a cup of coffee and hear you complaining about why your experiment failed again this time, patiently waiting until you’ve realized yourself what you did wrong.
How will we remember Walter:
“KH2PO4 ..... K2HPO4. Well, close enough!”
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Supervisors
Christian Fleck
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Dr. Christian Fleck is the leader of the team. In his role as an Associate Professor in the Systems & Synthetic Biology department, Christian’s group researches the effects of light and patterning in biological systems using theoretical and synthetic techniques. As coordinator of the team, Christian has played a large role in organizing lab space, setting up collaborations and meetings with other departments in Wageningen UR and supplying lab materials for the team to take advantage of. In fact, without Christian’s support the WUR team would not be booking their tickets to the Boston Jamboree!
How will we remember Christian:
“Congratulations everyone, we have a new iGEM team this year.”
Gert Kema
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Dr. Gert Kema is a Senior Researcher from Plant Research International and the leader of the banana research at Wageningen University. He helped our team with the logistic for the greenhouse space, shipping of the banana plants and with Fusarium experiments. He definitely facilitated the successful development of our research. Gert is a dedicated scientist, a good trouble-shooter and a very friendly person. Even though he is an extremely busy man, he will always take time for a good espresso and a conversation with students and colleagues about his favourite topic - bananas or other fruits.
How will we remember Gert:
“Don’t worry, it is okay.”
Fernando Garcia Bastidas
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Fernando is a PhD student at Wageningen UR in Plant Research International and dedicates his time to fight the Panama disease. He supervises all greenhouse related experiments and finds last minute solutions for us when the ordered plants don't arrive or when we forgot to book the right greenhouse space. Seemingly ever happy will he always take the time to help us. Working with him is a great pleasure because he makes digging in soil fun.
How will we remember Fernando:
“As soon as the Banana plants are here we can start.”
“When will they be here?”
“I don’t know, and then they need to grow for 3 more weeks before we can start.”
Kees van der Ark
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Kees is a PhD student at Wageningen UR in the Microbiology department and an experienced iGEM’er from 2012. He is one of the most optimistic and out-of-the-box thinking supervisors of our team. His advice is not only limited to meetings, but also exceeds to the wet lab at random encounters in the weighing room. And whenever we are down, he reminds us of his own accomplishments 2 years ago, when they finished in the top 16 while they hardly had any results. This is very comforting when our transformations failed again for no good reason.
How will we remember Kees:
“Wiener Melange, can’t start a day without. Beer, can’t end a day without.”
Marnix Vlot
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Marnix is a PhD student at Wageningen UR in the Microbiology department, working on the CRISPR-Cas. He himself was a team member of the very successful 2012 Wageningen iGEM team. Marnix is a rather quiet person but when he gives feedback the whole team hangs to his every word. Marnix is very clever and eager to help, if it is in the lab or on the street fixing bikes. If you have ever been to the Netherlands you will know how important it is to be able to fix a bike in this part of the world.
How will we remember Marnix:
“Never underestimate the power of appeal (a peel) in a project.”
Nico Claassens
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Nico is a PhD student at Wageningen UR in the Microbiology department. Troubleshooting sessions with Nico is just about the most effective way to overcome stagnation. Due to Nico’s talent to make the most complex things seem easy as pie he became the go-to-person for all wet lab students. This went so far that his colleagues, who share his office put a “Nico is not here”-sign on their door to keep us from entering. It goes without saying that this was of course without success.
How will we remember Nico:
“I grew them overnight, so about 8 hours.”
“You mean 16 hours?”
“Do I? Oh right, I guess.”
“So I guess you learned something today! There’s 24 hours in a day.”
Robert Smith
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Rob is the postdoc in the department of Systems and Synthetic biology. He is in charge of the day to day supervision of the iGEM team. Rob is a mathematician by trade, hailing from the shores of Britain. Usually the first person to arrive in the morning, he is the early bird of the department. If he is not working you can probably find him playing field hockey or doing some form of exercise. An unconventional Brit that does not enjoy a cup of tea, he has adapted to the Dutch way of dairy filled sandwiches for lunch and a cup of coffee in the morning. If you see him at the Jamboree feel free to say hello.
How will we remember Rob:
“What do you mean Bob, be more specific.”
Ruben van Heck
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Ruben is a PhD student at Wageningen UR in the department of Systems and Synthetic Biology. He was part of the iGEM team of 2011 himself, a supervisor of the 2013 team and he was also a judge in the iGEM competition 2013 (Regional jamboree Lyon). Always friendly and patient to a degree that makes you question his sanity, is he the one that will let us use his car so we can make it on time to important meetings. Moreover, he would come to the lab on public holidays to read a novel so we can work outside of office hours.
How will we remember Ruben:
“Ruben, could you ...[enter an absurd request]..., please?”
“Sure, I think I can make that work.”
Stamatios Damalas
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Stamatios is a PhD student at Wageningen UR in the department of Systems and Synthetic Biology. Synthetic biology is not just his job but also his passion. He is supervising the team working on the double dependent plasmid system that avoids horizontal gene transfer. The chances to meet Stamatios in the lab are very high any time between 1 and 11 pm on weekdays and weekends but it is wise to not approach him before he had some coffee.
How will we remember Stamatios:
“Use the SEVA plasmid, it will make it so much easier.”
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