Team:Pasteur Paris/Attributions
First of all, we would like to thank the Institut Pasteur and everyone who took part in making iGEM Pasteur possible this year. With the help from a lot of different people, our team was able to pursue this project and face all the difficulties we ran into. We thank with all our heart the professors and coaches of Institut Pasteur, Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI Paris), Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle (ENSCI-Les Ateliers), Faculté Jean Monnet Paris Saclay, Sorbonne Université-UPMC, Institut Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, and Centrale-Supélec for sharing their experience, knowledge and always be there for us.
Our incredible coaches
Those 4 amazing persons were always there for anything we needed. We could not have done and learnt so many things and stood on our two feet throughout the project without them. So we want to thank them with all of our heart :
Anna Ségu Cristina For all her advice and help in molecular and cellular biology. She also spent a lot of time reading and correcting the wiki content.
Deshmukh Gopaul For being absolutely everywhere, and aware of everything at every time. More than a leader, his strong knowledge in biology provided us a large amount of help and advice in the lab.
Guillian Graves For helping us with all the design part of our project. He was always supportive, professional, and understanding, which allowed us to stay motivated no matter what.
Serena Petracchini For all the help she has given us in the cellular culture lab work. She has been essential for enzymatic digestions and seeding neurons. And last but not least, she was the key advisor for the Interlab practical work.
Our wonderful team
The iGEM competition demands a lot of work in terms of research, lab experiments, engineering, modeling, integrated human practices, fundraising, communication and ethics. The multidisciplinarity of our team allowed us to divide tasks to better match our members’ interest and experience. The knowledge of each team member enriched our initial training.
Sequences design
Charlotte and Thomas laid the foundations of the biobrick sequences which were then perfected for the cloning strategy all together with Eléa, Gabriela, Manon and Jonathan.
Microbiology
Charlotte, Eléa, Gabriela, Jonathan and Manon spent all their summer in lab to do the microbiology part. Alice, Aymen, Ellyn, and Léa helped to learn more about microbiological experimentations.
Cellular Biology
Thanks to their biological background and internships, Manon and Sarah were able to perform the neuronal cell culture, with the help of our advisors Anna and Serena. Antoine also came and helped when it was time to seed the neurons into the microfluidic chips.
Microfluidics - Membranes
Andreas and Antoine spent a huge amount of time manufacturing and designing the different types of microfluidic chips: the basic micro-channel chips, microfluidic well chips and the simple or double membrane micro-channel chips. They also established the conductivity part with the different membranes. Ellyn helped for the experiments.
Interlab
Alice, Léa and Samuel were in charge of the InterLab Study and received help from our advisor Serena. They did the experimentations, the measurement experiments, and processed the data.
Modeling
The modeling part was divided in two parts: Aymen realized the mechanical modeling of a bone’s bond to a prosthesis, and Alice, Charlotte and Samuel did the modeling of secretion, diffusion and influence of NGF on nerve growth.
Design
This important part of our project was done by Claire, Etienne, and Florian. They created the visual identity of NeuronArch and did the communication supports. They spent most of their time designing the prototype of our interface and imagining the possible user scenarios of our device. To do so, they met companies, health professionals and interviewed patients.
Wiki
Props to Andreas, Ellyn, Léa and Thomas who designed and coded the pages of our wonderful wiki. Andreas, Charlotte, Eléa, Emma, Gabriela, Kelly, Jonathan, Léa, Manon, and Sarah helped to write the wiki content. Jonathan also drew the majority of the amazing biology sketches!
Fundraising
Alice, Antoine, Aymen, Charlotte, Claire, Ellyn, Etienne, Kelly, Jonathan and Samuel did all the sponsors research and contacted a lot of companies in order to carry out our project. Deshmukh Gopaul and Clémentine Schilte allowed us to open a Crowdfunding on Thellie.org, which was essential to our project.
Communication
Emma, Gabriela and Manon were in charge of ensuring communication on our social networks: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Andreas, Antoine and Florian were in charge of filming and editing our promotional videos.
Entrepreneurship
Antoine, Samuel, and Sarah carried out the business plan composed of the market analysis, the study of potential competitors, the marketing and sales plan, the operations and the financial plan.
Human Practices
Survey: Kelly and Léa wrote together the survey we shared, asking questions about synthetic biology and trying to gather opinions about our project. They elaborated two paths with different questions, drafted the explanations in order for the survey to be educational and analyze the outcomes. Events: Alice, Antoine and Samuel organized the Parisian Meet-up, they contacted and found the different professionals we had for the roundtables. Antoine and Sarah worked to attend to the "Fête de la Science" (Science Fair) and created the different posters and animations in order to popularize biology and DNA, synthetic biology and our project for children and the general public. They also raised awareness on disabilities. Safety: Alice, Emma, Gabriela, Léa and Manon also carried out the safety part. Aymen, Emma, and Jonathan doubled the voices for the video explaining in a simple way how the NeuronArch kill-switch works. Law / Ethics: As law students, Emma, Kelly, and Sarah were in charge of the legal aspect of our project, including confidentiality and image rights, legal research and the drafting of a brief on the regulation of medical devices in France and Europe, as well as ethics-related reflections and meetings.
Presentations and Posters
Each member of the team contributed to the presentations and posters we did along the year.
Thank you to the professionals who contributed to our project
Microbiology
Bastien Lefeuvre, MS-Bio Platform, Institut Pasteur, 75015 Paris For running mass spectrometry analyses for two of our samples, and for helping us analyze the results.
The Education Center of the Institut Pasteur For letting us use their lab, equipment and materials. We especially want to thank Hervé Waxin, Director of the Teaching center and the lab technicians Murielle Almoussa, Corinne Fayolle, Angélique Godfin, Guylène K’ouas, Isabelle Lequeutre, Gautier Puime, Abdelhak Sandal, for their advice. Thank you to Céline Corbin, Gladys Elisabeth, Sylvie Garnero, Sylvie Malot, Virginie Ponticelli and Christine Vauthier for their help and administrative support.
Cellular Biology
Dr. JongEun Ihm, BioImagerie Photonique (UtechS PBI), Institut Pasteur, 75015 Paris For helping us with the imaging of our neurons in the 96-well plate.
Dr. Julien Fernandes, BioImagerie Photonique (UtechS PBI), Institut Pasteur, 75015 Paris For helping us with all the imaging of our neurons.
Microfluidics
Audric Jan, Équipe Macromolécules et Microsystèmes en Biologie et en Médecine (MMBT), UMR168, Institut Curie, 75005 Paris For designing our microchannel chip and fabricating its mold, giving us advice, teaching us all the techniques used in microfluidics and helping us with the molds of our own chips.
Dr. Bruno Bresson, Team Réseaux Polymères Souples, ESPCI-SIMM-UMR7615, 75005 Paris France For the capture of microscopic imaging of the different kinds of membranes.