Team:Vilnius-Lithuania/Members
Members
Komanda X
Vilnius-Lithuania 2018 team or as they prefer being called, Team X, led by no one else but their own Professor X, gathered from every corner of their country with a single purpose. They united all of their individual special powers and lived as a family for eight months just to accomplish a project that was as substantial and as grueling as nothing they have stood against as individuals before. It‘s them, who did not fear and established the incredible SynDrop.
Supervisors
Gintaras Valinčius
Department of Bioelectrochemistry and Biospectroscopy
Dr. Gintaras Valinčius was always optimistic about our team and was always curious about the current state of our project. Despite Dr. Valinčius busy schedule, he was always willing to help in any way he could. His expertise in membrane science was particularly helpful.
Linas Mažutis
Sector of Microtechnologies
Even though Dr. Mažutis was mostly working abroad, he never hesitated to find extra time for an internet call and give some fundamental advice in the field of microfluidics. The opportunity to work in the microfluidics’ laboratory was also invaluable for building our project.
Members
Auksė Gaižauskaitė
Role
Advising on every and we mean e v e r y problem
Study programme
Molecular Biology master's degree
Auksė is the elder-mom of our team. Her name is one the most beautiful Lithuanian names meaning Goldengirl. Honestly, her advice about the project’s idea, laboratory issues, HP activities are always supposed to be of golden value. Keeping in mind that Auksė has many responsibilities and tasks to do outside the project, her family members often say: „Auksė doesn‘t need to wake up early because she is already awake.“
Dovydas Vaitkus
Role
Creation of the next top model
Study programme
Molecular Biology
Dovydas has spent many hours turning into days, weeks, and even months with a model. He was never so passionate about no one ever before, and he couldn‘t help himself but being with his model all the time. Blessing or curse, it was not a photo model but a model for our project (which we really weren’t sure whether to be worried or happy about it). „To compare all of my longest played games in a lifetime, the COMSOL would be #1“
Gabrielius Jakutis
Role
Moneymaking and meetings with everyone
Study programme
PhD in Developmental Genetics
After spending all his life in the city, Gabrielius simply hates the idea of sleeping in a tent. However, to our surprise, recently he moved to the German countryside to pursue his PhD dream. It turned out to be a right choice after he magically made every wet lab experiment work in iGEM. Outside the lab, Gabrielius nailed every single sport branch and was the single worthy opponent of Simas at foosball. As a prize for remarkable performances, Gabrielius used teams’ budget to rent cars for his own needs for half a year.
Hanna Yeliseyeva
Role
Professional literature overviews
Study programme
Microbiology and Biotechnology
Hanna was born in Minsk, Belarus, but for quite a long time she has lived in Lithuania. Besides studies and iGEM she also mentors foreign students in the University and is planning to continue her studies in the USA. In view of internationality while being born in the Belarus, living and mentoring foreign students in Lithuania, planning the future in the USA, it is safe to assume she is the „i“ in „iGEM“.
Ieva Juškaitė
Role
Donating blood for her own experiments
Study programme
Biochemistry
Ieva is the junior-mom of our team. She knows exactly how many spoons of coffee and how much milk everyone prefers in it. Ieva sleeps like a mother of a newborn - approximately not at all. Although power-naps of total unconsciousness are her specialty as well. We should be thankful for such womanliness and charm she has, because one of her suitors is creating a model for our project. While she may seem harmless, years of rowing a canoe built her inner strength to wrestle Gabrielius, yet nothing helped against her dreadful fear of phages lysing her cells.
Justas Ritmejeris
Role
Lord of Vilnius iGEM
Study programme
Biochemistry
If you don‘t know how to cheer up Justas, invite him to a battle of laser tag or airsoft. Due to his tactical efficiency not only in those battles, he is more than suitable for being the leader of our team. He’s a perfect example of how one should make a career in science - from filling plates with LB Agar last year to becoming a mastermind of the project this time. Don‘t be screwed up – his heart can turn from feather to stone in minutes and nobody will pass into silence or stay without assignments. On the contrary, there are 4 words and 14 letters that everyone desires to hear from Justas: „Food’s on SynBio“. We are also thinking about running a questionnaire during the Giant Jamboree whether he should shave his beard or not...
Kornelija Vitkutė
Role
Synthesizing buckets of liposomes
Study programme
Neurobiology master’s degree
This girl just loves animals (zver in particular), but the best pet she has ever had must be a giant goat moth, named Hellboy. You may think she wouldn’t hurt a living being, but she has enough courage to open fire at Justas’ face during airsoft. However, most of the time you may find her by the computer making our illustrations that were inspired by countless hours of microfluidic experiments. And we kindly suggest you not to mention NASA to her, because she won’t stop talking for hours then.
Kasparas Taminskas
Role
Wiki development
Study programme
Software Engineering
For the possibility to read our wiki page, you (and us also) should be thankful to Kasparas. Last one to join our team, he has spent seas of time doggedly creating and programming it. When we asked him how the things were going, he usually answered that they were really hard, and after hitting up to flesh out, he smiled widely and said that every moment of it was challenging. Rumors have it that Kasparas has changed his registered home address to: https://2018.igem.org/Team:Vilnius-Lithuania
Kristina Žukauskaitė
Role
Running 100 IVTT reactions/day
Study programme
Genetics
FLithuanian name „Kristina“ sounds similar to an English word „crystal“ or „gem“. On daily basis, Kristina might introduce herself not only as „I am Kristina“, but „I (am) gem“ as well. She is also a true hidden gem of our team, as none of us have ever witnessed such pipetting skills in our entire lifetimes. If you ask her for help with the interlab, wet lab or even human practices, she never waves away. And when you introduce an idea to her, she always laughs friendly in the beginning. We never understood, if it was a good sign or bad.
Lina Škiudaitė
Role
Phone calls and budget management
Study programme
Pharmacy
Lina is just helpless at keeping secrets from anyone and that makes her a perfect candidate for taking care of our budget. Unfortunately, she is the worst partner in crime at the same time. Despite that you can find out many piquant stories of her life, if you asked her like grim death. That might be a dark hint how her nickname „Johnny“ came along. Sometimes she also went missing for a few days. We used to call her numerous times and check local police reports until we understood that she simply likes to get away to the seaside.
Lukas Praninskas
Role
Software building
Study programme
Software Engineering
In Slack he is „Luke the IT guy“. But he breaks the longstanding opinion about the humdrum of informatics while having an artistic soul: he captures every moment with his camera during trips, listens to rock 24/7, and practises capoeira. Then all this gained inspiration displays creatively while leaving a computer rendering the model video… in the bathroom! Just in order to get some sleep at night without the noise and light coming from the computer. According to Lukas: “Everything can be coded”
Miglė Kalvaitytė
Role
Positive vibes and HP supervision
Study programme
Molecular Biology master’s degree
If you met Miglė at any time and asked her how was that casual day going, she even more ordinarily replied: „Everything is wonderful! Today I had cut mouse’s head off again!”. It is likely that after such answer you may misjudge her but truth is, she is an artist by birth even when studying Molecular Biology. Therefore we should be grateful for the traditional collaboration with artists every year. Also, this is her third year on iGEM. We are starting to think, that she secretly seeks to become the most-medal-winning iGEMer of all time.
Monika Kazlauskaitė
Role
Generating Nobel Prize winning letters to our partners
Study programme
Medicine
Monika shows up in almost every meeting and usually brings cookies as a repay for every unaccomplished task. She is the reason why we have invented the “couch of shame” (not to be mixed with the other couch). However, sooner of later every job is done as Monika is a professional multitasker - tons of book worthy letters are finished overnight while still getting ready for her medical exams at the same time. Actually, she’s so good at it that after Gabrielius went away for his PhD studies, we entrusted her with our health matters and promoted her to the Head of Medical Care. She also can speak backwards. gnizamA!
Simas Jasiūnas
Role
Perfecting ancient cloning rituals
Study programme
Molecular Biology
To tell the truth, Simas (also known as “Shan Zu”) was the person whose photos most frequently turned into memes. He never grumbled about it so we kind of felt his secret wish of becoming a world renown meme-face. If you were determined to compete with him in foosball, be prepared for being destroyed. I mean not only by the score, but by flying balls towards you as well, because Simas’ spins are sometimes harder and faster than turnaround dribbles of Kevin Durant. “https://youtu.be/fBaFfhcQQIY”
Tomas Venclovas
Role
Overnight chromatographies
Study programme
Molecular biology
While chatting with Tomas, more often than not the conversation turns 360 degrees due to his advanced meme techniques. For example, he likes to compare people with fungi and emphasize on their similarity. Then the second talker has nothing else to do, but to kindly ask him to keep his personal life out of this. Even so, he does not get angry, just becomes immersed in his computer. Because, as he says, „Runescape helps me concentrate“.
Ugnė Kapočiūtė
Role
Infiltrating Thermo Fisher Scientific and gathering information
Study programme
Genetics
Ugnė’s accuracy is her strength while coping with human practises activities. From precise leaflets layouts to even smallest icons in guidebooks - nothing can skip her check up. All tasks she gets are made much before deadlines and opportunities to help others appear subsequently. While a match between name “Ugnė” and “Fire” (direct English translation) is clear, nobody knows what is the fuel for her diligence...
Valentas Brasas
Role
Western blots and other devastating experiments
Study programme
Molecular biology
Valentas is famous for his “so bad they’re good” puns and extremely bizzare ideas. It has went so far, that only by saying „I have a really great idea“ he left everyone laughing for ten minutes even though the idea itself was never revealed. Despite of being the youngest in the team, he tends to coach us in lab, basketball, football, foosball, politics, Valent-blots (yes, ask him...), music, etc., and plans on being the next leader of Vilnius iGEM with one of his “ideas”. It wouldn’t come as a surprise, because out of dedication for the project he refused to pay for the internet at home and chose to live in the university instead.
Lukas Šerelis
Role
Minimization of the design
Study programme
Graphics design
This guy is responsible for the design of our project as giving him credit for having longevous experience of creating Minecraft videos and sharing them on Youtube. He is the only team member we’ve never met and only Skype calls let us believe in his existence. Formerly he used to take some risk while taking any train or bus and going on a mystery tour without certain direction. Who knows, maybe he landed up in the UK in this way?
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