Team:Melbourne/Team

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<td><p><strong>Elizabeth Brookes</strong></p>
<td><p><strong>Elizabeth Brookes</strong></p>
Elizabeth is in her second year of the Bachelor of Biomedicine degree and is majoring in Immunology. In the future Elizabeth hopes to continue to develop her passion for research while studying postgraduate medicine. Elizabeth was new to iGEM in 2014 and contributed to Melbourne’s iGEM project by working in the laboratory, developing protocols and performing various administrative duties. For Elizabeth, the most enjoyable aspect of iGEM was getting hands-on experience while meeting like-minded people. In her free time Elizabeth enjoys playing netball and discovering new restaurants with friends.</td>
Elizabeth is in her second year of the Bachelor of Biomedicine degree and is majoring in Immunology. In the future Elizabeth hopes to continue to develop her passion for research while studying postgraduate medicine. Elizabeth was new to iGEM in 2014 and contributed to Melbourne’s iGEM project by working in the laboratory, developing protocols and performing various administrative duties. For Elizabeth, the most enjoyable aspect of iGEM was getting hands-on experience while meeting like-minded people. In her free time Elizabeth enjoys playing netball and discovering new restaurants with friends.</td>

Revision as of 14:43, 16 October 2014

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About The University of Melbourne

Located in Melbourne, Victoria, The University of Melbourne was founded in 1853 and is Australia’s second oldest university. The university is consistently ranked among the leading universities in the world, with international rankings of world universities placing it at number 1 in Australia and number 34 in the world (Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2013-2014).

About The 2014 Melbourne iGEM Team

The 2014 Melbourne iGEM team consists of 19 highly-motivated undergraduate students and 1 postgraduate student from a range of disciplines, including biochemistry and molecular biology, chemistry, chemical engineering and bioengineering. The team’s academic and research credentials are well-tested. This year, the team comprises three of The University of Melbourne’s Chancellor’s Scholars (top 0.1% of all Australian high school students) and several team members with research experience at Melbourne’s high-profile research institutes, such as the prestigious Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and The Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute. The team is supervised by Professor Paul Gooley (Head of the Department of Biochemistry at The University of Melbourne), Dr Heung-Chin Cheng, Dr Angus Johnson and Dr Neil O’Brien-Simpson. The Melbourne iGEM team was founded by a group of enthusiastic and motivated students in 2013. The 2013 team played a key role in establishing the foundations of this year’s team and generating this year’s project. Unfortunately many of the 2013 team members could not continue their work for iGEM in 2014, so credit must also be given to Pedro Avellar Costa, Michelle Tie, Georgina Panshem, Morgana Cerqueira, Jeong Yoon Esther Kim, Winnie Tan, Hannah Nguyen, Mary Teo, Cathy Pitt and Joyce Kant.

Heung-Chin Cheng (Supervisor)

An Associate Professor with the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Heung-Chin has been studying the biochemical basis of the regulation of protein kinases and phosphatases since he was a graduate student at the University of California in 1982. His PhD project unravelled the active site structure of c-AMP-dependent protein kinase, how the kinase recognises its protein substrates and how the kinase is selectively inhibited by its endogenous inhibitor.  Heung-Chin was the Melbourne iGEM team’s supervisor and he kindly offered us space to work in his lab and assisted us when we had questions about practical procedures, troubleshooting or theory.

Paul Gooley (Advisor)

Associate Professor Paul Gooley directs a structural biology research group that focuses on the application of NMR spectroscopy to elucidate structure and protein interactions. He obtained his degrees at The University of New South Wales and spent 10 years in the USA, including 5 years at the pharmaceutical company Merk and Co. Over the last 10 years his group has conducted and published NMR structural and dynamical analyses on a number of protein domains and systems that have biological functions in stress and infection, in lipid transport, in protein and membrane trafficking, and in receptor signalling. Paul assisted the 2014 Melbourne iGEM team by providing advice, answering questions and brainstorming.

Angus Johnston (Advisor)

Dr Angus Johnston is a researcher at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science. Angus is an ARC Future Fellow who’s work focuses on developing better ways to deliver drugs, making them more therapeutically active and limiting side effects. He has extensive knowledge and expertise in nanomaterials assembly, material characterisation, cellular interactions and advanced imaging techniques. Angus’ research interests include targeted vaccine therapy, sensors for cellular imaging, understanding cellular processing of nanoparticles, self assembling peptides as drug carrier and the toxicology of nanomaterials. Angus assisted the 2014 Melbourne iGEM team by providing advice, answering questions and brainstorming.

Neil O’Brien-Simpson (Advisor)

Associate Professor Neil O’Brien-Simpson is a researcher at the Royal Dental Hospital in Melbourne and has an interdisciplinary background, combining organic and peptide chemistry with immunology to develop novel vaccines and therapeutics and investigating the immune response to pathogens. His research into vaccine design and periodontitis has resulted in Neil being awarded the Colgate Prize for Dental Research (1999), The IADR Hatton Award (2000) and the Oral Biology Award (2003). In 2004 he became program co-leader for the Novel Diagnostics, Vaccines and Pharmaceuticals Research Program in the Oral Health CRC. Neil assisted the 2014 Melbourne iGEM team by providing advice, answering questions and brainstorming.

Laboratory Support

A special mention must also be made to the Honours and PhD students in the laboratory who tirelessly and patiently assisted with our troubleshooting and planning of experimental procedures. These students were: David Zula, Ken Ang, Ashfaqul Hoque, Sze-Ting (Bong) and George Cao.

Sean Lowe (Team Leader)

Sean started the 2014 Melbourne iGEM team while completing his Master of Engineering in chemical engineering. As the team leader, Sean was responsible for communicating with supervisors and sponsors, setting up the lab, and making sure the team ran smoothly. Sean is passionate about science and saw iGEM as an amazing opportunity to combine his interests in chemical engineering and biotechnology. He found that the best part of iGEM was the creative process, and thoroughly enjoyed discussing many great ideas with his bright and capable teammates. He looks forward to passing on the torch to the next generation of Melbourne Uni iGEMers.

Elizabeth Brookes

Elizabeth is in her second year of the Bachelor of Biomedicine degree and is majoring in Immunology. In the future Elizabeth hopes to continue to develop her passion for research while studying postgraduate medicine. Elizabeth was new to iGEM in 2014 and contributed to Melbourne’s iGEM project by working in the laboratory, developing protocols and performing various administrative duties. For Elizabeth, the most enjoyable aspect of iGEM was getting hands-on experience while meeting like-minded people. In her free time Elizabeth enjoys playing netball and discovering new restaurants with friends.

Peter Collins

Peter is in his final year of the Bachelor of Science at The Australian National University in Canberra and is majoring in Science Communications, as well as completing his first year of the Bachelor of Environments at The University of Melbourne. In the future, Peter aims to work on The Human Variome Project, develop the iGEM competition in Australia and work for UNESCO. Peter joined the Melbourne iGEM team in 2014 and was in charge of human practices and outreach, working to establish relations with high schools in Melbourne for on-going public outreach efforts in the future. As such, Peter has enjoyed getting an insight into managing science innovation teams and the tremendous array of challenges that accompany this. In his spare time, Peter enjoys learning about esoteric topics that may have unrealised commercial applications.

Sheryl Ding

Sheryl is in the first year of a Bachelor of Biomedicine degree and is hoping to major in Bioengineering Systems. In the future, Sheryl would like to work in biomedical research, preferably specialising in engineering or molecular and cellular biology. After joining the iGEM team in early 2014, Sheryl contributed to the laboratory work and some administrative tasks for the project. Sheryl enjoyed all aspects of this experience, but particularly the opportunity to gain practical insight into laboratory research and meet the people on the iGEM team. Outside of science, Sheryl enjoys visual art and watching TV shows.

Tobias Gustavsson

Tobias is in his second year of the Bachelor of Biomedicine degree and is majoring in Immunology. In the future Tobias hopes to study medicine and continue to pursue research in immunology. Tobias was new to iGEM in 2014 and contributed to the theoretical design and research of the team’s project. iGEM presented Tobias with the opportunity to finally partake in the laboratory work that he had heard so much about in lectures.