Supervisors Other Contributors Team Accomplishments Sponsors

Supervisor Contributions

Our team would like to acknowledge the following people for the help and advice they provided along the course of our project

Dr. Chloe Singleton:

Contribution: Preparing our chlorite solutions and performing our Clark electrode experiments.

Dr. Paul James:

Contribution: Performing the co-transformation of our plasmids containing pcrABCD and cld.

Dr. Mark Hewlett:

Contribution: Performing the Western blots on PcrA, PcrC, and PcrD.

Dr. Richard Tennant:

Contribution: Supervising our InterLab experiments that involved the FACS machine

We would also like to thank these University of Exeter staff and colleagues:

Dr. James Gilman
Dan Barber
Dr. Sara Burton
Prof. John Love

for allowing us access to their lab and equipment, and for being extremely patient with us over the course of this project.

Other Contributions

Prof. Mike Allen:

Contribution: Donating his vortex bioreactor, which our team is using as a model SFB.

Richard Romang:

Contribution: Producing CAD images of our bioreactor.

Leigh Murphy

Contribution: Troubleshooting and assisting with the mathematical modelling.

Related Previous iGEM Projects

Team Accomplishments

iGEM provided the entire team with learning curves and opportunities that they would otherwise not have had access to. After 5 months of planning, producing and working, it would be a fair assumption to say everybody has worked hard. Our team consisted of four biologists, three physicists, two biochemists and a computer scientist. We feel that this variety in team specialities was especially important in the success of the project.

The beginning of the project can be traced back to a 'bootcamp' week during April, where we were introduced to iGEM, and non-biologists were brought up-to-date on biology terms. We were also introduced to human practices and modelling aspects of the project, and met members from previous teams.

We then began the work in mid-June, with members either staying in Exeter for the summer or commuting. The early summer work saw a lot of ideas develop and many discussions were had, but then we finally settled on 'Project Perchlorate' as our focus. Since then, it's been Mars, regolith and perchlorate.

Below is the list of what each team member felt like they were involved with the most, and what we enjoyed most about iGEM:

Emily Browne:

Key focus: Wiki, laboratory, and InterLab.
Enjoyed the most: "Learning to code from scratch, and also undertake protocols in the lab I've never had the opportunity to do before e.g. cloning and transformations. These two skills have opened many doors for me, and have made me appreciate that there is much more to the scientific world than reading journals and testing a few things."

Nahnsu Dawkins:

Key focus: Bioreactor, Human practices, and Wiki.
Enjoyed the most: "I headed up human practices, worked towards developing an easy assay for perchlorate, generated graphics and diagrams for the team. At the beginning of the project, I worked towards selling Project Perchlorate as an idea to our team and supervisors, and had lots of fun seeing how it developed over the summer with so many smart minds working on it. At Boston, I will be presenting our project again, this time selling it as a finished project, and I'm proud of how much we've accomplished."

Phil George:

Key focus: Wiki.
Enjoyed the most: "Creating the more advanced elements of the site (e.g. JavaScript elements, and using P5.js and Bootstrap), and the skeleton of the pages, as well as maintaining the size of the pages across a range of browsers and devices. Also, various minor and major bug fixes to make the page work smoothly in general."

Amy Hewitt:

Key focus: Bioreactor, Wiki, and Human Practices.
Enjoyed the most: "Working on the bioreactor. Quite often I struggle to finish what I start, but what started off as just a couple of ideas grew into a fully designed bioreactor. We also got to experiment with a model bioreactor provided by Plymouth Marine Laboratory, which was incredibly exciting."

Sophie Hodson:

Key focus: Lab, Gene analysis, and Contacts.
Enjoyed the most: "This summer has introduced me to science beyond what we learn in textbooks. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work with such hardworking and talented people. My confidence with respect to teamwork, presenting and lab work has improved greatly."

Ingebjørg Holmedal:

Key focus: Mathematical Modelling, Data Analysis, and Lab.
Enjoyed the most: "Making the box for the bioreactor. Quite stressful as it was done close to wiki freeze, but a lot of fun to use my hands on more physical things"

Fiona Kennedy:

Key focus: Human Practices, Social Media, and Lab.
Enjoyed the most: "Meeting with and interviewing lots of different academics from all over the university as well as exploring and learning about bioethics"

Matt Romang:

Key focus: Lab, Gene analysis, and Contacts.
Enjoyed the most: "Interacting with experts from industry and academics from all over the world. Including people from space agencies and the author of the Martian."

Juliana Sackey:

Key focus: Human Practices, Lab, and Social Media.
Enjoyed the most: "Human practices has helped me understand more how science needs to be reflective of the needs and concerns of those it will eventually affect. The effective use of scientific knowledge and understanding cannot exist in isolation."

Eleanor Wells:

Key focus: Lab, Data Analysis, and Bioreactor.
Enjoyed the most: "My highlight of the summer was achieving the silver medal criteria with our work on signal peptide sequences and GFP. At the start of summer in the lab I had very little confidence in my own abilities, and now I feel like even when I don't succeed first time, I can look at my mistakes as learning opportunities to grow as a scientist. I think another highlight of my summer has been working with researchers such as Dr Chloe Singleton, who gave me their time to teach me procedures which has given me this new confidence, and I thank them for this opportunity."

Team:Exeter/Attributions