Our 2017-2018 team started out with minimal to no experience in synthetic biology, but through this process gained appreciation and excitement for the capabilities of this field. We began brainstorming our project in January, and started our lab work and project work in mid-June.
Although every team member holds unique strengths, we were all able to meaningfully contribute to each aspect of our project, from collaborations to human practices, and lab work to website coding - making this a wholly collaborative and cooperative effort!
A special thank you to Dr. Qi Zhang
from UNC-Chapel Hill, for serving as our instructor and mentor this year, helping us to understand the fluoride riboswitch, and graciously allowing to use his lab space this summer.
Thank you to Dr. Joseph Harrison
for his continued help and guidance in our project. Dr. Harrison also served as a mentor for the 2016-2017 East Chapel Hill team, and despite his relocation to California, continued to give our team invaluable advice.
A warm thank you to Jessica Hobson, Rhese David, and Shu Zhang for always pushing our team to aim for the best. We are extremely grateful for their patience, time, and support put into this project. They taught as valuable lab skills and techniques, to be patient and precise, and to accept and learn from every mistake.
Thank you to Hong Niu and Siyu Wang from the Donald Lab
at Duke University for being extremely helpful in the process of designing and coding our wiki page this year and assisting us with learning HTML and CSS elements.
Thank you to Ms. Patricia Berge
from East Chapel Hill High, for being patient with our team as we figured out logistics and organization issues, answering our many questions, and generously donating her time to support our team.
Thank you to Cecilia Lee
, the founder of the iGem club at our school and the leader of the 2016-2016 iGem team. Having been through the experience of leading an iGem team, Cecilia served as an advisor for our team and provided extremely helpful answers to our many logistical and project questions.
We would like to note that our project was built off the work that the 2016-2017 East Chapel Hill iGem Team
did previously. Dr. Joseph Harrison, who served as the primary instructor for the previous team, helped us to identify important ways we could improve upon the previous team’s work with the fluoride riboswitch.
