Our first meeting was during January 2018. We started as a small group of students and our advisors. We met weekly and recruited new team members and brainstormed about our project. In April 2018 our team was complete and the idea to create an anti-microbial surface was developed. Until October 2018 we tried to realize our project in the lab. In the process, we were supported by different people, companies and institutions.

General support and fundraising

We thank all the listed foundations and companies for the great support and collaboration. Without their support our project would have been impossible to realize. With donations of lab equipment and financial aid, they helped us to establish our own iGEM Lab at University of Stuttgart. Now there is a place to work for us and all future iGEM teams. Special thanks to Prof. Dr. Georg Sprenger and Dr. Josef Altenbuchner from University of Stuttgart for providing us with the laboratories premises.

Project support, lab support and advice

PI Prof. Dr. Martin Siemann-Herzberg, Jun-Prof. Dr. Björn Voss and Robert Nitschel, Sebastian Grenz, Martin Ziegler, Adrian Eilingsfeld

University of Stuttgart, Institute of Biochemical Engineering

Supervision operating day and night as well as knowledge input and lab support were just a few things we recieved by every advisor of the Institute of Biochemical Engineering mentioned above.

Erik Eppinger

University of Stuttgart, Institute of Microbiology

Supported us by providing necessary material and solutions.

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hauer and Dr. Lars Hinner

University of Stuttgart, Institute of Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry

Advice, material and suggestions for TAGC development were given by Mr. Hauer and Mr. Hinner.

Prof. Dr. Oscar P. Kuipers and Dr. Auke van Heel

University of Groningen, Molecular Genetics

Mr. Kuipers and Mr. van Heel provided us with a strain of Lactoccocus lactis for our nisin production. We isolated the nisin gene cluster out of this strain.

Prof. Dr. Christoph Syldatk

Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Institut für Bio- und Lebensmitteltechnik 2

Advice and contacts to get a plasmid with rhlC

Prof. Dr. Lars Blank and Dr. Andrea Germer

Rheinisch Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Angewandte Mikrobiologie

Provision of plasmid pVLT33 containing rhlC, scientific support in project planning phase

iGEM Team Darmstadt

iGEM Team Darmstadt sent us seven biobricks for chitosan production. Furthermore, they supported us with advice and useful hints.

iGEM Team Marburg

We collaborated with iGEM Team Marburg by doing experiments/measurements for their project (see Collaboration).

Technical support

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pleiss

University of Stuttgart, Bioinformatics

Our Modeling part was supervised by Mr. Pleiss. He supported us with advice and computing power.

Dr. Birgit Claasen

University of Stuttgart, Organic Chemistry

Mrs. Claasen and her colleagues conducted infrared analysis of our samples.

Prof. Dr. Christian Bonten and colleagues

University of Stuttgart, Plastics Engineering

He and his team analysed TAGC by Differential Scanning Calorimetrie (DSC). Above all, he gave us advice and further ideas for developing TAGC (see Human Practices).

Human practices support

Prof. Dr. Matthias Orth

Department of Microbiology, Marienhospital

We had an interesting talk about hygiene and disinfection in hospitals with Mr. Orth. He gave us information about the requirements for antimicrobial surfaces.

Departments of public relations and hygiene

Katharinenhospital

The Katharinenhospital gave us information about hygiene standards in hospitals.

Michael Teutsch

German Red Cross Calw

We visited Mr. Teutsch at the ambulance station and interviewed him about cleaning and disinfection in ambulances. Moreover, we learned about the regulatory requirements of a surface coating.

Business consulting

Katharina Schütz and Jens Lohmann

Campus Konzept Stuttgart e.V. (see campus-konzept.de)

Katharina and Jens helped us to develop a business concept.

Thanks and acknowledgements

Finally, we would like to thank all contributors working for the project.

Team:Stuttgart/Attributions