Team

Everything is cool when you're part of a team.

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Our Team

We are a team of sixteen seniors from Shanghai High School International Division. Though we all live in Shanghai, China, we represent a diverse group of students of from all around the globe: US, Canada, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. With a common interest in Biology, each of us have our individual quirks and personalities, skillsets and interests, that define how we cooperate and work as a team.

Chang Wei-Tse

Year: Senior
As the leader of our team and a student with an avid passion for biotechnology, I enjoy the time spent with my fellow members in and out of the laboratory, including our numerous research-heavy meetings and the design, synthesis, and testing of our project. In my free time, I take pleasure in watching documentaries, listening to classical and popular music and reading books of all kinds, from novels to non-fiction to assorted medical textbooks.
Favorite iGEM moment: The moment when our bioluminescent bacteria grown in a 500ml Erlenmeyer flask glowed bright blue when I was holding it inside the dark room.

Younji Jung

Year: Senior
The only Korean in Team SHSID_China, Younji is the team hoodie, logo, flag, and banner designer, photographer, video editor, online article editor/writer, social media manager and sometimes even a participant in laboratory work. Younji has multiple interests including visual design, video editing, bird photography, calligraphy, Korean hip hop, soil science, neuroscience, Deconstructionism, etc. Even outside of iGEM, Younji is a passionate investigator in Biology who dreams of devoting her whole life in Medicine practicing neurosurgery and is currently taking concrete steps to realize her goals.
Favorite iGEM moment: Posting online articles on social media super productively

Archie Jiang

Year: Senior
I'm a Canadian citizen who has been living at Shanghai for pretty much my whole life. I enjoy playing badminton, exploring video games, and above all, birdwatching. In this iGEM team, I am mainly responsible for programming and designing the wiki pages that you are browsing right now.
Favorite iGEM moment: Seeing the main page function correctly after a hard night's work with Sophie [our designer]

Sophie Li

Year: Senior
If it's free time and I'm not drawing, you can bet I'm either at the Biology lab, writing for a magazine, volunteering somewhere across the city, surfing Youtube, or trying to destroy my tongue with some classic Szechuanese spice. Or, lamenting the fact that I still haven't found time to watch Infinity War.
Favorite iGEM moment: Holding an eppendorf tube full of poison, like a boss... except it probably looked more epic in my mind.

Yasuhiko Komatsu

Year: Senior
I like experiencing things firsthand and that also applies to my favorite subject biology. Experiencing biology firsthand does not necessarily mean staying for hours in the lab - I go to local shores and mountains dozens of kilometers away from urban Shanghai to watch birds, insects, mammals, amphibians, and other overlooked compoments of our local ecosystem.
Favorite iGEM moment: The moment I ejected a pipette tip for the first time. Very few things can feel more satisfying.

Hsin-Yu Lo

Year: Senior
I’m Claire, a girl who was born in Taiwan but moved to Shanghai at the age of 4. I found myself labelled with a couple of tags: swimmer, senior struggling with college application, cereal killer, coffee addict, food lover, late night worker and most importantly iGEMer. Spending my time in lab and being the leader for the human practice section has made this summer more complete and fulfilled, whereas I would normally just be a couch potato.
Favorite iGEM moment: When the entire hallway smells like LB

Xinbo Yu

Year: Senior
Learning biology has always been a delight for me, from the smallest of glycoproteins to the most complex of the 37 trillion cells that define us as a functioning human being. The practicality of the subject and the unknown potential that the field has makes it a subject that will affect the lives of future generations. In my free time I also enjoy shadowing physicians and experiencing the careers that interest me first hand with the opportunities given and maintaining my own financial portfolio.
Favorite iGEM moment: The time spent with the team and the many arguments and discussions made us feel more like a family than just students.

Sonia Chang

Year: Senior
Born in Taiwan, I have lived in Shanghai and studied at SHSID for more than half of my life. As a fervent thespian, theater has been the center of my high school life for the past five years. I enjoy every moment working either onstage or backstage as an actress, stage manager, or student director. These experiences in theater have fostered my love of collaborating with large groups of people and presenting unique, creative ideas onstage. At the same time, I have a wide variety of interests including music, Japanese language and culture, films, and medicine.
Favorite iGEM moment: My favorite iGEM moment belongs to CCiC

Ping-an (Andy) Chen

Year: Senior
As one of the only students who did not take courses in chemistry or biology, I am not a huge fan of labs. Instead, I enjoy the more business and economic side of our project. Being an econ student does not mean that I spend hours a day watching CNBC or reading the textbook. Instead, I explore my economic and business interests through sneaker hunting. Aside from sneaker hunting, I like to keep my life on low power mode.
Favorite iGEM moment: When I heard someone took a shower in the labratory.

Wen-Jou Chang

Year: Senior
I was born in Taiwan but I moved to Shanghai two months after I was born. In our iGEM team, I am an active member in the lab and the human practice group. Outside of iGEM, I have a wide range of interests including Chinese calligraphy, binge watching tv series, Korean pop music, and watching cat videos on YouTube.
Favorite iGEM moment: Crushing agarose gel with my hands

Jiacheng (Jason) Yu

Year: Senior
Inside the team, Jason is an active member in the laboratory and a core member of the design group. He has become adept at plasmid extraction after performing countless trials in the lab during the summer. Outside of iGEM, he keeps a healthy lifestyle – attempting to get buff through daily workouts and weekly trips to the swimming pool. While writing this introduction, he is simultaneously working on his IAs, editing his personal statement, devising ideas for his TOK essay, and also playing some Clash Royale.
Favorite iGEM moment: Productively reviewing for AP Music Theory during one of our group meetings.

Mei Ku

Year: Senior
As a natural sciences student, I have always jumped at opportunities for research and related works. There is nothing I enjoy more than the satisfaction felt after a successful experiment. Other than academics, I also like to watch science fiction movies.
Favorite iGEM moment: The moment when we saw the glow of the bacterium even though we are in a dark and freezing storage room.

Takayasu Yamane

Year: Senior
I always wish to go above, over, and beyond. Regardless of academics, doing community service, or playing the piano, I hate giving up and I seek to find new experience and knowledge through persisting. I am a research guy in this team and this quality of mine has helped me and my teammates.
Favorite iGEM moment: The moment my proposed plan - plastic biodegrading fungi - has lost the vote by few points. Hours spent researching was not wasted but provided me a good experience.

Kristie Xia

Year: Senior
iGEM has provided me the chance to collaborate with teammates toward the same goal, something I value deeply. In the human practice department, we helped each other to fundraise, build ties of collaboration, and organize publicity activities. I am still grateful for the help I have received in presenting for the CCiC and in setting up the Shanghai Botanical Garden Exhibition.
Favorite iGEM moment: The minutes of tense preparation before our CCiC presentation and the satisfaction afterwards.

Kevin Qi

Year: Senior
Dedicating most of my summer vacation on lab work, I fully and truly experienced the excitement of staying in the laboratory from morning to night basically everyday. Although accidents happen and protocols forgotten, these experiences made me familiar with lab procedures and definitely expanded my knowledge in the field of synthetic biology.
Favorite iGEM moment: Messing around with liquid nitrogen during transforming the agrobacteria was the best. Photos and videos of that are still in my phone (more than any other lab moments).

Kathy Cheng Wang

Year: Senior
I’m Kathy, a girl who was born in Philadelphia but moved back to China after a few months. The experience of attending the iGEM competition had gave me the chance to take part in a complete science project. I enjoy both the Laboratory experience and the human practice activities with our team members.
Favorite iGEM moment: Successfully getting an extra 1000RMB funding for our team uniform from our sponsor.

Our Mentors

Our work would have been impossible without the support from our mentors. They have helped us from the beginning, starting with organizing our team, encouraging team discussion, providing access to labs, and supervising our experiments. We wholeheartedly appreciate all their dedication and assistance throughout our iGEM journey.

Advisor- Prof. Youli Xiao

Advisor- Dr.Yang Chen

Advisor- Dr. Shiwen Wu

Instructor- Shangzhi Dong

Instructor- Lili Li

PI- Dr. Tingting Li

PI- Hui Liao

About the Lab

We work in the Xiao Lab, one research group of CAS Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology & Ecology (SIPPE), Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS), Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS). It’s fully equipped with tools for synthetic biology research.

Team:SHSID China/Team