We would like to thank the kind, supportive people that we have met and had the privilege of collaborating with during our iGEM project. Numerous research groups, companies, departments and individuals have supported us over the course of this project. We would like to express our gratitude and acknowledge all of these people for their time and contribution.
General Support
Supervisors
The supervisors supported us in developing the project and were extremely helpful when resolving all issues that arose in the team. We would like to thank Dr Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro and Amritpal Singh , particularly, for their guidance and expertise during wet lab troubleshooting. In addition, we would like to thank Dr Tom Ouldridge for his support and guidance on modelling and software issues and to Ismael Mullor Ruiz for his support on all areas of the project and being the glue of the team to keep us together. Finally, we would like to give special thanks to Prof. Richard Kitney for helping us to make this project a reality and encouraging us to make the most of our time on the project, particularly by considering its impact on society. This project would not have been completed without all of your support.
Departments
We would like to express the greatest of gratitude to the departments of Bioengineering and Life Sciences at Imperial College London, for making this project possible and providing us the platform to have one of the best experiences of our lives.
Technical Support
During the course of the project we have had the chance to work with many great people who have helped us overcome the bottlenecks in the project:Dr Danny O’Hare, reader in sensor research, shared his expertise with us during the initial electrochemistry experiments and modelling work. He gave us crucial advice on finding the balance of our redox modulators to optimise our system in different conditions, and how to evaluate and understand the chemical reactions taking place in our system’s background. Dr Robert Bradley, as a bio-electrochemist, gave us essential advice on how to work with a bio-electrochemical system and kindly provided us with a potentiostat to use for the duration of the project.
Dr Marko Storch, as one of the developers of the BASIC assembly technique, helped us tremendously when designing and planning the characterisation of our library constructs. In addition to helping us troubleshoot our "application" constructs, he also advised us to use a Fluorescent Image Analyser, which helped us to get clear and detailed proof-of-concept data. Ari Dwijayanti, an expert in BASIC, instructed us in BASIC assembly technique performance and patiently helped us with problems we faced in the lab.Dr Robert Sternberg, senior lecturer in science communication, advised us on our science communication strategy and our approach to human practices in general. He suggested that phrasing is particularly important when presenting science to audiences with different backgrounds. This key concept led us to develop our Science Communication Guide. Dr Tanya Tschirhart, first author of the original Nature Communications paper on electrochemical stimulation of cells, gave us invaluable insight into details of how the experiments in that paper were performed. Dr Francesca Ceroni helped brainstorm ideas when coming up with applications for our system. Dr Andrea Fantuzzi, an electrochemist, also helped us troubleshoot our system and gave us advice on using different chemicals we to improve our system. Dr Tom Ellis, Dr Guy Bart-Stan, Dr Karen Polizzi and Dr Kirsten Jensen, as supervisors from previous iGEM teams, supported our project and guided us in all aspects of the iGEM competition. Alice Boo & Henry Lloyd-Laney. Since the beginning of our project, Alice and Henry were heavily involved, giving us advice in how to convey our ideas. Alice also kindly provided us with plasmids and lab material when needed. Albert Fàbregas Flavià , you always came up with creative solutions to our problems, and we thank you Dr. Nicolas Kylilis , thanks for inspiring us with new mathematical ways to visualise our data. Our fellow undergraduate students on the synthetic biology course at Imperial, for bringing the Tanya's paper to our attention during a brainstorming session.
Wiki support
Carys Moller, former wiki creator in the Imperial iGEM team, gave advice on wiki building and has helped with troubleshooting the website codesVirginia Ma, graphic designer from UAL, helped us to produce icons and advised on aesthetics for the wiki.
More supporters
We would also like to acknowledge those that provided us with their assistance when it came to organising our project and helped with the technicalities around a summer project.Tania Briggs for extensive organizational efforts and communication with the iGEM foundation. Susan Wryter the lab technician for the teaching labs that we used during the project. Thank you for helping us to acquire material for our experiments and teaching us how to properly manage a laboratory. Luca Francesco Montanelli for using coding skills to help us to develop a Unity game for presenting our project to both non-scientific and scientific audiences. Francesca Hussey, Olivia Wing Cheung, Ronni Winkler and Taïna Griscom for creating the amazing art pieces that helped us covey synthetic biology and the importance of biopatterning to the general public at the New Scientist Live science fair. We look forward to presenting their work in our forthcoming exhibition at Imperial College. Audrey Wong, Michelle Lim and Andrea Li for running a design work shop with us and other London universities, and for giving us feedback and advice in designing our posters and presentations for the jamboree.
