Team:SF Bay Area DIYbio/Attributions

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ATTRIBUTIONS

The Real Vegan Cheese iGEM Team

Real Vegan Cheese is made possible by the combined efforts of our team of 24+ biohackers and citizen scientists working out of two open community labs in the San Francisco Bay Area: Counter Culture Labs in Oakland, CA and BioCurious in Sunnyvale, CA. The Real Vegan Cheese project is open to collaborators of all skill levels and from all walks of life. In October we will be entering our Real Vegan Cheese project into the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. We are excited to be part of a larger global community consisting of students and biohackers from over 30 countries! Below are those that made this project a reality.

THANK YOU FOR THE COMMUNITY SUPPORT

This project would not have been possible without the support and donations from people around the world to our Indiegogo Campaign. The campaign had 696 funders raise $37,369. This funding is vital, not just for the iGEM competition but as a foundation to move forward with the project. We learned as a result of this campaign, that there is enormous support for this type of synthetic biology project among the Vegan community.

DIY COMMUNITY

The project could not have moved foreward without the support of the DIYBio Community. Having access to lab space at BioCurious and Counter Culutre Labs is proof that coumminty science projects can be done.

TALKING ABOUT US

We are fortunate that many journalists and bloggers took an interest in our project. Thank you to all the sites that featured Real Vegan Cheese. Their coverage helped spread the word and was invaluable to our fundraising efforts.

• East Bay Express
  Inside the Ethical Cheese Lab - Oakland biohackers are manufacturing the first-ever vegan cheese product made from genetically modified yeast.
  
• Vice
  
• BoingBoing
  
• CNETA vegan-cheese project on Indiegogo aims to replicate cheese from cows' milk without involving any mammals. by Amanda Kooser
  
• Make
• TechCrunch
• Engadget
• DailyMail
• Gizmodo
• Phys
• Geek
• Science2.0
• O'Reilly
• Slate
• SingularityHub
• KQED
• PopSci
• Bing

Everyone on the team was involved in some capacity. We had weekly, and sometimes bi-weekly team meetings to plan, and experiments throughout the week as schedules allowed. Specific project contributions include:

• Rebecca led, and Patrik, Craig, Ahnon, Marc, Bryce Wolf contributed to the discussion around Ethical, Legal, Societal and Environmental Issues.
• Ashley, Craig, Patrik, Advait, Johan and Rachel helped with the DNA design, including codon optimization, and checking for restriction and protease sites.
• Rachel took charge of sequence validating our constructs, with some help from Craig
• Ashley, Patrik, Marc, Benjamin, Teddy, Jamie, Carl, Advait, Maria, and many more helped with the IndieGogo fundraising campaign
• Craig, Johan, Patrik, and Marc ordered reagents
• Maria, Advait and Patrik kept us on track with iGEM deliverables
• Aaron, Meenakshi, Rachel, Lafia, Nikola, and Johan did most of the experimental work (but we all got to contribute!)
• Jared Morgan designed our awesome graphics.
• Carl helped with weblayout on the iGEM wiki
• Emi arranged for sequencing pickups
• Marc Juul Christoffersen (treasurer), Craig Rouskey (chair), Maria Chavez (secretary), Carl Crott, Johan Sosa, Moises Cassab, Lafia Sebastian, Meenakshi Choudhary, Rachel Linzer all joined the projects Board of Directors

  Mohammed Almahbashi
  BS, Biology - Human Physiology
  He is currently student at City college of San Francisco pursuing a Biotechnology lab assistant certificate. He is also currently an intern at UCSF Mission Bay. His lab studies the cell Cycle and how the post translational modification of proteins regulate cell cycle with the contribution of DNA damage response. His lab uses the Yeast as our system Model to study the DNA damage respond in Yeast.

  Aaron Byran
  Molecular Biology Undergrad
  Member of BioPrinter community project and Real Vegan Cheese.

  Wes Chang
  Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering
  With background in engineering, Wes has extensive experiences in biomedical research, specifically involving cell biology and microtechnology. Currently, Wes is working the pharmaceutical industry but continues to be interested in new technologies and developments in the biology and biotechnology.

  Maria Chavez
  MBA, Global Management
  Maria has a diverse background and experience. She has been involved with BioCurious and the community lab projects for over 3 years. She is enthusiastic about science and DIY Bio. The Real Vegan Cheese project includes a full range of issues and challenges that drew her interest in the project.

  Meenakshi Choudhary
  PhD, Biosciences
  Meenakshi's research interest focus on learning innovation. she has been involved in different research project like Algae and Cyanobacterial bioremediation, anti diabetic property of Cyanobacteria and Bacterial Bioluminiscence and working with BioCurious for over 2 years. The vegan Cheese project is very interesting and challenging to her.

  Carl Crott
  BaMF biohacker / Self-taught programmer
  Research interests include microfluidics and codified wetlab protocols. Core engineering discipline is in full stack web development and automated infrastructure. Both a technical developer and conversational in research concepts. Experience in scaling, application testing/hardening, embedded systems, parametric modelling, biochemistry, web scraping, design and UIs. Bad at writing in 3rd person.

  Antony Evans
  BA Math, MBA
  Co-Founder and CEO of the Glowing Plant Project.

  Teddy Fagin
  BA Molecular and Cell Biology
  Teddy is a science enthusiast who is drawn to exciting scientific progress. He started participating with BioCurious in late 2012, participated with the University of São Paulo's 2013 iGEM team, and started contributing to the Real Vegan Cheese project this year.

  James Foley
  Biotechnology Undergrad
  James is a longtime vegan and student of biotechnology. His interests include promoting science and critical thinking and exploring the intersections between science, animal rights, and social justice.

  Allen Fung
  MS Bioengineering
  Allen is experienced with hardware development and has performed in vitro research in fields of mammalian angiogenesis and T-cell immunology.

  Ashley Graham
  BS, Molecular Biology
  

  Tim Heath
  BCSE, MSCS, MBA, Computer Science and Engineering
  Programmer, and long time DIY Bio enthusiast with a background in robots and deep interest in synthetic biology.

  Ryan Holmes
  

  Tito Jankowski
  BS Biomedical Engineering
  Designer, Pearl Biotech, Co-founder, BioCurious

  Marc Juul
  MSc, Biotechnology Engineering
  Software, hardware and wetware hacker with a background in network programming, synthetic biology and community organizing.

  Rachel Linzer
  PhD, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
  Rachel has been involved with research on multiple human and forest disease systems and maintains a parallel interest in bioethical issues. For the past five years, she's been an at-home parent tending her own two mating experiments, so she's especially excited about participating in community biology. Rachel has been a part of Counter Culture Labs and BioCurious since 2014.

  Jing Luo
  

  Matthew Milford
  High School Student
  Matthew is a high school senior currently interested in biomechanical engineering. He participates in the BioPrinter group, is President of the Physics Club, and is an Officer of two other school clubs. Matthew is currently conducting preliminary research on bacterial metabolization of toxins for a special research project at his school. In his sophomore year he sent an experiment to space.

  Ahnon Milham
  B.S., Physiology, emphasis in Neuroscience
  CEO Counter Culture Lab, biohacker, with experience as a lab technician.

  Jared Morgan
  Designer & Web Designer. Neighbor and designer for CCL and Real Vegan Cheese
  

  Nikola Nikolov
  PhD, Nuclear Physics
  Nikola has a diverse background and experience. He has been involved with BioCurious since 2013. He has a PhD in nuclear physics. He is involved in the semiconductor industry, programming, and nano technologies.

  Itai Ofir
  Freshman Undergraduate Student
  Science enthusiast, member of BioCurious, Real Vegan Cheese, and BioPrinting project.

  Advait Patil
  High Schooler
  Advait Patil is a high schooler who has a passion for science, biology, and synthetic biology. He has competed and won four medals in the state science olympiad. He is also a Junior Solar Sprint Challenge finalist, and was on his school's science bowl team. He is sincerely determined to learn about and participate in synthetic biology, and aspires to create or discover something that will change the world. He has been involved with Biocurious since 2013, and Is excited to be a part of the Real Vegan Cheese team.

  Benjamin Rupert
  PhD, Chemistry
  Synthetic Chemist, Vegan, and enrironmental activist

  Lafia Sebastian
  MSc, Biotechnology
  Lafia is a postgraduate in Biotechnology and a graduate in life science. She also completed the certificate course in Biotechnology from the university of California, Santa Cruz. She worked as a research assistant in a liposome drug delivery company. During her graduate studies she was involved in various projects such as assay of biofertilizers, antimicrobial activity of aloe-Vera, bacterial bioluminescence and development of Cyano bacterial biofertilizer and shelf-life. She has been working at BioCurious since 2013. She is proud to be a part of such an exciting real vegan cheese project.

  Arif Shaikh
  BSC Cell Biology
  Arif started college as a business major found Biology more interesting and since then, has been focused on reading and applying new skills in biological research. Went to Liberal Arts School named Dominican University of California got a 4 year degree in Biology with a concentration in Chemistry. Then started an internship at a Tissue Engineering company. After College started working for a biotech called Antibody Solutions,learned a trade in Biochemistry with Antibody, Antigen reactions.

  Johan Sosa
  Johan has a background in computer security. He has been involved with BioCurious since 2012. He is into everything science. The idea of making Vegan Cheese is exciting to him.

  Akhil Varanasi
  

  Rebecca Wilbanks
  BA, PhD Candidate, Modern Thought and Literature
  Rebecca is working on a PhD in Stanford's program in Modern Thought and Literature on the speculative futures of biotechnology, combining literature, science studies, and the history and philosophy of science. Previously, she taught biology at the Bronx High School of Science, and is interested in the intersection of science and culture.

  Joanna Wilczek
  

  
  

  ADVISORS
  

  Patrik D'haeseleer
  PhD, Computer Science
  Patrik D’haeseleer is a bioinformatician by day, mad scientist by night. He is a cofounder of Counter Culture Labs, community projects coordinator and leader of the BioPrinter group at BioCurious, and scientific advisor of the Glowing Plant project. He participated in iGEM 2004 as part of the Harvard/BU team while doing his postdoc at the Church lab.

  Craig Rouskey
  MSc, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry and Immunology
  Molecular Immunologist and Biohacker, has researched adoptive T cell therapies for leukemia and prostate cancer, elucidated a role for novel T cell types in psoriasis, created bacterially-vectored protein and DNA vaccines, and is currently the Principal Scientist for the Immunity Project - working to create a PLGA-vectored HIV-1 vaccine free, to the world.