Team:UGent Belgium/Team
Meet the team
Students
David Bauwens
David is a PhD student in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology using an array of hosts. When not busy working, David is also a musician, playing guitar, harmonica and doing vocals for his band “Big time Bossmen”. Furthermore he’s an outdoors guy, enjoying nature whilst rock-climbing, open sea kayak, hiking...
Maarten Van Brempt
Maarten is a PhD student, surrounded by synthetic biology every day. This awesome iGEM project offers an exciting opportunity to apply this field in a broader context to handle a global problem. When Maarten is not trying to make this world a better place using synthetic biology, he’s doing it by stopping a zombie apocalypse with nothing but a PS4 controller! While at home, being lazy is the way to enjoy the evening, but when traveling he’s always looking for another kick.
Bob Van Hove
Bob has been a PhD student for long enough for phdcomics.com to become ‘too real’. He’s no stranger to challenging molecular cloning strategies and enjoys messing around with electronics for fun. Outside the lab you’ll often find him in the midst of a thrilling D&D campaign.
Bram De Jaegher
Bram loves mathematical modeling, out of the box projects and computational fluid dynamics. He possesses no knowledge whatsoever about biotechnology, which is a great addition to the team. Bram is convinced that his windsurfing skills will be of great use during the iGEM jamboree. In his free time, Bram is trying to get a PhD scholarschip. Donations will be welcomed with open arms!
Sofie Lodens
Sofie can be described as a woman with a quite unusual hobby: women's rugby. She's playing this in competition for already 6 years, but nevertheless, she doesn't describe herself as an aggressive person ;-). Furthermore, she loves to spend the rest of her free time with her lovely border collie Ziva (picture). Next to this, her PhD is her passion and synthetic biology has always intrigued her, that's why the step into iGEM was not so illogical.
Michiel Stock
Michiel is a machine learning and computational biology PhD student. His research revolves around predicting interactions between molecules and species. Someday he hopes to use this to save the world or brew beer. Not being allowed in the lab, Michiel helps with designing, modeling and characterizing the water collector.
Griet De Clercq
Having difficulties to choose between her two passions, computer science and biology, Griet started her university journey in computer science. She however missed biology too much, and decided to switch over to bioscience engineering instead. Still yearning to work on both fields simultaneously, she joined the bioinformatics master program a few years later. iGEM offers a great opportunity to further explore these fields and learn new things about them, as she is in the biofunction and shape group. In her free time, she likes to swim, sew, or play computer games, depending on the weather.
Bram Danneels
Bram couldn't get enough of the student life, so after his master in biology, he started his current master in bioinformatics. The unique project, the new people to meet, and the new things to learn convinced him to join the iGEM team. That, and the trip to Boston of course. When he's not working on the iGEM PR or the biofunction part, Bram enjoys playing the piano, travelling, or just playing some games.
Wouter Steyaert
Wouter is a very decent guy. He works at the Center for Medical Genetics Ghent - where he mainly analyses exomes, genomes and transcriptomes of patients with a connective tissue disorder - and studies bioinformatics at Ghent University. He loves quantum gravitation, modeling, cycling and most animals. Some team members asked him to join the project since his head could be of use for the prototype of the watercollector. He agreed.
Chari Vandenbussche
After three years of focussing on the theoretical side of science and gene technology, Chari decided to brush the dust off her love for computers and programming – that she discovered in high school, but neglected afterwards – and started a master in bioinformatics. She joined the iGEM team to experience playing with science and knowledge in an outside-the-box kind of way. When she is not busy studying or attempting to make Fusion 360 do as she likes, she can be found in the pasture with her horse or reading a book in any position that is comfortable for the next five minutes.
PI's
Wim Van Criekinge
Wim Van Criekinge graduated in 1994 as a Chemical Engineer from the University of Ghent, Belgium, where he also earned his Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology in 1998. Today he is part-time Professor at the same university, where he is head of the laboratory for computational genomics and bioinformatics (Biobix) in the department of molecular biotechnology. In 1997, he was co-founder and director of Devgen, a successful public biotechnology company.
Marjan De Mey
Marjan De Mey is one of our PI’s. She totally agrees with this quote: 'Manipulating microorganisms makes great fun. Manufacturing with them is just rewarding. Making people to work on that is the aim.'
Yves Briers
Yves Briers is passionate about the potential of the synthetic biology of modular proteins. Contributing to the iGEM team UGent is therefore a great pleasure!
Advisors
Steven De Blieck
Steven likes fun things. He is driven by curiosity and combines this with his knowledge of technology in his work. He likes travelling, making silly jokes in improvisational comedy and doing adventure sports. He dislikes cooking and duck face selfies. He wants to do iGEM because it’s a great opportunity to learn new things in uncharted territories.
