Team:Leiden/Team

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Meet the team!

Competing in iGEM is a team effort. This year's team from Leiden consists of 13 students supervised by two principal investigators and three advisors. Click on their pictures below to learn more about them!

Charlotte de Ceuninck van Capelle

Team manager

Charlotte de Ceuninck van Capelle

Team manager

Biopharmaceutical Sciences BSc

Charlotte involves herself with all team members to assist us in our tasks and help ensure things run smoothly. During meetings she maintains structure by being just and fair, while in the lab she can be found working on isolating stress promoters from Bacillus bacteria. When problems arise, Charlotte will quickly be working on a solution, making her our reliable team manager.

Fun fact: Charlotte knows most Epic Rap Battles by heart

Daphne van den Homberg

Secretary & Design manager

Daphne van den Homberg

Secretary & Design manager

Biomedical Sciences BSc

Daphne is always focussed during meetings in order to capture every important detail we discuss, making her our great secretary. Outside the meetings she can be found in the lab, working on isolating many new stress promoters from the E. coli genome and coupling them to GFP tags. Any time she has left is spent behind her laptop, working hard on creating the most beautiful designs such as our logo, poster and flyers, or she is editing photos and videos she has taken of our team.

Fun fact: Daphne gives CPR training to children in her spare time

Maaike de Jong

Treasurer

Maaike de Jong

Treasurer

Biomedical Sciences MSc

Maaike keeps a careful eye on our money flows, making sure enough comes in to keep funding our teams activities. In this, she works closely with our fundraising managers. Maaike can also be found in the lab where she is attempting to integrate our entire stress response system into one giant plasmid. Later, she joined the effort to create an enhanced expression system by placing multiple fluorescent or chromoprotein tags in sequence.

Fun fact: Maaike her quotes have been redacted from our wiki

Tim de Jong

Fundraising manager

Tim de Jong

Fundraising manager

Molecular Science and Technology BSc

Tim is usually busy talking to potential sponsors of our project, trying to get all the funding together to finish our project. This also involved setting up our crowdfunding project and thinking of all the best ways of getting people to donate. In the lab, Tim works on validating our stress promoters using flow cytometry analysis in order to make sure they produce actual stress responses to stressful compounds.

Fun fact: If Tim wouldn’t work in the lab, he would become a famous Youtuber with his exploding turtle videos

Jazzy de Waard

Fundraising & Modelling manager

Jazzy de Waard

Fundraising & Modelling manager

Molecular Science and Technology BSc

Jazzy often contacts companies and organizations to convince them our project is worth backing. This has allowed us to acquire much of the funding needed for our project. With this aim, she also works on setting up our crowdfunding page. In the lab, Jazzy is testing compounds in our stress response system using disc diffusion and bacterial overlays. Lastly, she is figuring out if modelling could be used to further improve our project.

Fun Fact: Jazzy has a mortal fear of balloons

Carli Koster

PR manager

Carli Koster

PR manager

Life Science and Technology BSc

Carli is usually working on the latest social media post or instagram challenge to spread awareness of our project. She is also involved in managing our collaborations with other iGEM teams, keeping us in touch with the rest of the competition. Besides this, she works in the lab on testing the stress responses of our isolated stress promoters in order to validate our system.

Fun Fact: Carli knows all the songs on our iGEM playlist by heart

Marijke Grundeken

PR manager

Marijke Grundeken

PR manager

Biopharmaceutical Sciences BSc

Marijke is one of our PR members, focusing on writing cool pieces on our project for various sources. She is also involved in organizing our Human Practices, making sure no issues are overlooked. In the lab, Marijke works on creating Streptomyces overlays and a disc diffusion system to test our colourful bacteria strains.

Fun Fact: Marijke named her cat after a grilled cheese sandwich

Mees Fox

Event manager

Mees Fox

Event manager

Life Science and Technology BSc

Mees is responsible for the organization of any events we visit. This often involves many emails and phone calls to get the details right. In the lab, Mees worked together with Daphne to isolate stress promoters from the E. coli genome, and couple them to GFP tags.

Fun fact: Mees was the only one to bike to the high school he attended for two years in the USA

Lotte Weel

Human practices manager

Lotte Weel

Human practices manager

Psychology BSc

As our only Social Sciences team member, Lotte quickly became responsible for managing our Human Practices. As such, she ensures we keep a clear line and that no aspects are forgotten, while motivating other team members to contact their designated stakeholders. In the lab, Lotte works with Maaike to attempt creating a giant plasmid which holds an entire stress response system. She also often helps out others in the lab and started working on enhancing chromoprotein and GFP expression.

Fun Fact: Lotte filled our iGEM music playlist with a combination of rock and heavy metal songs

Laurens ter Haar

Wiki & Project manager

Laurens ter Haar

Wiki & Project manager

Biomedical Sciences BSc

Laurens is involved in the design and planning of our wiki, by writing and editing texts and discussing final designs with Chiel. He also loves giving feedback on other designs and texts and wrote the script for our animated video. In the lab, Laurens is working on integrating the T7 chromoproteins and GFP enhancement with our most potent stress promoters, while trying to assist others in their lab ideas. Lastly, he has become our designated presenter when talks of our project are given.

Fun Fact: Laurens is the only one to actually get a date from our group tinder session

Chiel van Amstel

Programming manager

Chiel van Amstel

Programming manager

Life Science and Technology BSc

Chiel is our programming mastermind, focusing mainly on coding our beautiful wiki. When not coding for the website he is involved in planning the statistical analysis of our results, making sure they are processed correctly. In the lab, Chiel has worked on the Interlab study for our bronze medal requirements. Chiel also has an eye for good design and is always available for feedback on our work.

Fun Fact: Chiel ran a successful restaurant in his student house over a summer holiday

Marjolein Crooijmans

Science manager

Marjolein Crooijmans

Science manager

Biotechnology MSc & Science Based Business MSc

Marjolein was instrumental in setting up our project by already testing out many stress promoters during her masters internship. In the lab, she passed her knowledge along to the rest of the team as our science manager. This allowed us to quickly become acquainted with experiments and designing our own systems. She focuses herself on acquiring all the parts needed for our T7 enhancement system to increase expression of GFP and chromoproteins.

Fun Fact: After iGEM, Marjolein will be retreating to Hawaii for three months

Germaine Aalderink

Lab & Safety manager

Germaine Aalderink

Lab & Safety manager

Biomedical Sciences BSc

Germaine is always around to remind us of lab safety and keep everything nice and tidy to promote an efficient lab working atmosphere. As our lab manager, she also set up our lab notes system and ensures all lab products are kept in stock. Additionally, she works in the lab herself were she tried to isolate stress promoters from the Bacillus genome. Later, she joined other lab projects. Lastly, Germaine has an artsy eye which for example lead her to draw the many frames of our animation video.

Fun fact: Germaine’s favorite quote was “If you don’t want to cry, you chose the wrong iGEM team”