Team:Uppsala-Sweden/Team

=About the Team=

We are a group of students from Uppsala university and we are all interested in the field of Synthetic Biology. Our group consists of most promising young talents from different education programs. The mixing of international master students of the program in applied biotechnology and the Swedish engineering program in molecular biotechnology gives our team a broad base of knowledge and skills in all sciences that compose the field of synthetic biology.

The Uppsala University has a long history of making valuable contributions in biochemistry and biotechnology. There are many research groups at the university working with projects related to Synthetic Biology. Our team is supported by the department of Photochemistry & Molecular Science (Fotomol).

Here we are, the jolly crew of the Uppsala iGEM team.

=Students=

Anders Kristoffersson
(24) (Sweden) Master student in Molecular Biotechnology

My part in this competition is mainly project development and laboratory work. I like the iGEM competition due to the large degree of freedom it offers us as students to create and explore an idea independently. Having just finished my last courses I am currently searching for a suitable project for my thesis.

Erik Florman
(26) (Sweden) Master student in Molecular Biotechnology.

During the project I have worked mainly with laboratory stuff and sponsorship. The best thing about iGEM as I see it, is the freedom and broadness of the project, from actual work in the laboratory to finding sponsors and developing your own ideas.

Karl Brune
(21) (Germany) Bachelor Student in Job Creation Oriented Biotechnology at the University of Perugia, Italy

The application of biological knowledge in order to tackle nowadays and future problems has an incredible potential. Thus I decided to dedicate my studies towards Biotechnology. In particular the iGEM competition is a great opportunity for me to realize my own ideas, exchange with people all over the world and to learn more about Synthetic Biology. My part in the team is the development of the butanol project, the design of the experiments, finding sponsors, brochure, graphics, iGEM Wiki and of course wet lab work.

Ruiqing Ni (part time)
(23) (China) Master Student Applied Biotechnology

I am Ruiqing Ni from China, and now a Master student of Applied Biotechnology at Uppsala University in Sweden.I participate mainly in the lab work. I like iGEM and our project for it provides us with an opportunity to collaborate with others and get insight into Synthetic Biotechnology.

Jonatan Halvardson - The Modeler
(24) (Sweden) Master student in Molecular Biotechnology

=Advisors=

Daniel Camsund
(29) (Sweden) PhD student at the Department of Photochemistry & Molecular Science.

Within the greater goal of producing renewable fuels from solar energy, I’m working with the design and implementation of biological tools and systems in the photosynthetic Cyanobacteria. This includes transcriptional and post-transcriptional control, development of standard (BioBrick) plasmids and heterologous expression of hydrogenases (BioModularH2). Additional research interests include RNA-based regulation, GFP in vivo localization and biological model simulations.

Developing and advising team Uppsala-Sweden have provided me with lots of inspiration. The sum of all the late evenings and weekends the team has spent, their innovativeness - both in design and all kinds of problem solving, will surely help to inspire new students, and hopefully, the system and all the novel parts will find their way into the hands of the renewable energy teams of iGEM 2010.

Thorsten Heidorn
(39) (Germany) Researcher at the Department of Photochemistry & Molecular Science.

Primarily I am interested in using photosynthetic microorganisms such as green algae and cyanobacteria for the biotechnological production of valuable products, particularly the potential future energy carrier hydrogen. About 3 years ago I got in contact with the idea of synthetic biology for the first time and saw immediately the big potential of this approach for my research. Then it was just a matter of time to organise the first iGEM team in Uppsala...

Mats Wallden
I'm a Ph.D. student at the Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Uppsala University. My research pertains to transcription factor regulation of gene activity in the bacterium Escherichia coli accounting for the effects of the major events of the cell cycle, such as volume expansion due to growth, gene dosage variation due to replication, molecule partitioning at cell division and cell aging. Employed in this interdisciplinary work are state of the art experimental and theoretical methodologies. Experimental methods are focused on the molecular cloning and genomic integrations of global regulators fused with various fluorescent proteins and subsequent fluorescence microscopy affording the detection and imaging of single regulator molecules in live bacterial cells. Experiments are complemented by modeling and characterization of deterministic and stochastic mathematical descriptions of the molecular control systems, specifically addressing challenging issues of biological complexity such as oscillatory behavior due to time delays in regulatory circuits and spatial considerations of one-, two- and three-dimensional diffusion search modes of molecular regulators.

Engineering genetic circuits and molecular pathways is the most demanding for the descriptions in molecular biology. The team has shown considerable ability in designing and implementing their original idea. Making accessible fuels such as ethanol and buthanol from sunlight is an inspiring notion that deserves the attention of scientist and engineers worldwide. The team has therefore broken important new ground for others to follow in the future. Coaching the team has been a very rewarding experience.