Team:Calgary/Acknowledgments

“One change makes way for the next, giving us the opportunity to grow”. The words of Vivian Buchen mark the substantial changes that our mentors have made to the University of Calgary’s iGEM team. We are proud to recognize these fabulous individuals for their kind and voluntary contributions to the team. They are our mentors, guidance and the people who truly make a difference “behind the scene”. Each and every individual here has contributed to iGEM in various fashions whether it was helping us with networking, monetary donations, sharing his or her knowledge, or helping to promote iGEM through media coverage.

Mr. Andrews for donating to the University of Calgary’s iGEM. We appreciate your support and motivation. Your contribution increases our potential for success as it is our eventual goal to establish a synthetic biology community in Alberta.

Mr. Jamie Liang for redrawing and reformatting the T-shirt design for the University of Calgary’s iGEM team. His work of art has produced a beautiful T shirt.

BHSc staff for providing the iGEM team with the O’Brien Labs, classrooms and equipments (centrifuge, water bath, fume hoods, etc) over the 4 months of summer and during the fall school year. Your support is appreciated.

Bonnie Bassler for providing our team with the following essential genes: Lux PQ, Lux OU, qrr4, and KT114. These biological parts helped us to successfully construct our signaling, response and mutant circuits.

Mrs. Ellchuk for helping the iGEM team to organize an outreach presentation at Western Canada high school. She is a Biology teacher and a former teacher of Prima Moinul and Jeremy Kubik. She helped to advertise the event to her students and devoted her class time for our presentations. Thank you so much!

Ms. Yohemas for taking time out of your schedule to meet with Prima and Fahd to discuss iGEM’s progress with media coverage. You have volunteered your time to assist our marketing team with networking, editing journals and proofreading our articles. Your support and encouragement has helped the marketing team make a great leap towards improvement. Thank you once again. A small boost at every step of our project makes a significant difference!

Natassja A.K. for drawing and perfecting the logo design that was thought up by our team. We now have a fantastic logo that will be instantly recognizable as ours, helping us to market our team more effectively.

Dr. Shawn Lewenza for acting a pro forma supervisor for Jamie Feng's application to the University of Calgary's P.U.R.E. program and for his expertise in advising us on any biofilm-related questions.

Michael Surette's lab for their donation of reagents and various bacterial strains crucial to the isolation of AI-2 from Vibrio harveyi. A special mention goes out to Margot Chilcott for her expert guidance and hands-on teaching. She was willing to drop whatever she was doing (including paper writing) to answer any questions we had (which our facilitators can testify to be innumberable!). It goes without saying that the Surette lab was key in helping the 2009 University of Calgary iGEM team further their project to where it is at today.

Our facilitators, Sonja Georgijevic, Thane Kubik, Dr. Christian Jacob and Dr. Anders Nygren who enabled us to help direct and formulate the project. Our endless conversations with them helped shape an excellent framework of knowledge, skills and ideas for us to build and elaborate on. The tireless efforts of the facilitators, especially Sonja and Thane, to ensure our success is greatly appreciated by the team.

Jennifer Hill from Alberta Ingenuity Fund for her time and effort put into organizing the various iGEM Alberta meetups. In a way, they all helped us advance towards the iGEM Jamboree.

Individuals affiliated with the various research symposiums we attended, including Melanie Grier from USRP and Jeniffer Logan from the O'Brien Center, for providing the University of Calgary 2009 iGEM team with a venue to showcase our results and achievements, helping to build awareness and excitement around Synthetic Biology.

Sebastian von Mammen for reviewing our work throughout the process of building the membrane computing model.

Fatemeh Zolfaghari for her generous help in preparation of the membrane computing tutorial videos.

Matlab for providing licenses for the modelling team. The licenses had Simbiology and the appropriate toolboxes for building the model.