Attributions

General support

We thank the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Bonn, the Limes Institute Bonn and the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg for providing the laboratory space, material and funding.

Scientific supervision

We are very grateful to Prof. Dr. Günther Mayer and Prof. Dr. Michael Famulok of University Bonn for supervising this project. We would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Klaus Lehmann of HBRS for his resourceful and unlimited support.

Lab support

Our dearest thanks go to our instructor Ignacio Geraci and all the other PhDs, PhD students and technicians of Professor Mayer’s and Prof. Famulok’s laboratory, especially Thinhinane Chaou, Laia Civit, Laura Eiden, Jeffrey Hannam, Mark Kerzhner, Daniel Matzner, Franziska Pfeiffer, Anna Pyka, Christian Renzl, Malte Rosenthal, Anna Schüller, Julia Siegl, Justina Stark, Jörg Ewers, Sebastian Pilsl, Silvana Haßel and Olga Wolter for their help and patience. We would also like to give special thanks to Stefan Künne for all his support and supervision throughout the project.

B. subtilis support

For their support with electroporation and the use of their equipment we would like to thank all members of the AG Dickschadt from the chemical institute of the University of Bonn. Furthermore, we would like to thank Prof. Satoshi Matsuoka for the gracious donation of B. subtilis expression plasmids containing three enzymes of interest and Prof. Thomas Schweder from the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Greifswald for the use of two Bacillus subtilis strains LS8P-D and ATCC 6051.

Equipment Support

For the use of titration equipment we would like to thank Dr. Ralf Weisbarth from the Chemical Institute at the University of Bonn and for the use of a lipase kit we would like to thank Prof. Christoph Thiele from the LIMES institute at the University of Bonn.

Project advisor support

• Benedikt HÖLBLING
  took care of the team’s finances, initiated and organized the team's science slams.

• BÙI Hoàng Duy
  gave pieces of advice to the project.

• Niklas Arndt SCHMACKE
  Was involved in the development of the project idea, introduced new team members to the theoretical and practical aspects of the project and iGEM and served as a remote advisor from Switzerland for a large part of the project.

Team Attributions

Our Team Members worked in the following groups, learn more about our team on our
Team Page

B. subtilis

• Ariana Natalie KLAPPERT
  optimzied PAGE gel analysis and protein expression.

• Jonas GOCKEL
  prepared competent bacteria, tested transformation protocols and established the Bacillus Subtilis collaboration with Freiburg.

Cloning

• Ariana Natalie KLAPPERT
  supported the cloning group during planning of restrictions, preparation of DNA, ligations and transformations. Ariana also worked on optimizing IPTG inducible protein expression in E. Coli.

• Caroline FANDREY
  planned and executed restriction and ligation of genes, secretion tags and backbones and their transformation into E. coli, and validated the results.

• BÙI Hoàng Duy
  provided help in all tasks of cloning.

• Jonas GOCKEL
  took part in backbone cloning.

• Laura LÓPEZ NAVARRETE
  collaborated in assembling DNA constructs of tags and genes in E. coli and prepared rapid ligase buffer.

• Michael TESKE
  supported the team with restriction analysis, ligations, minipreps and prepared rapid ligase buffer.

• Niklas Arndt SCHMACKE
  Designed the part sequences of nprb and sacB as well as the genes to be tested in deinking together with Max Schelski.

• Sophia MÄDLER
  assembled our working backbone, took care of introducing the working methods to new members, designed the pLac-RBS construct, performed analysis of sequencing results and planned experiments to assemble all constructs.

• Triinu LINKGREIM
  took part in backbone cloning.

Deinking

• Gintarė MALININAITĖ
  was responsible for the deinking part of the project and took part in the design of the experiments.

• Stefan KOTTE
  did a solvent analysis, established the grayscale analysis and refined the deinking process on the lab scale.

Specific Enzyme Essays

• Sophia MÄDLER
  established all protocols to determine specific enzymatic activity of lipases, xylanases and endoglucanases in our lab.

• Triinu LINKGREIM
  refined the enzyme activity assays and was responsible for measuring enzymatic activity in the project.

Human Practice

• Alina SIEBENMORGEN
  one of the main organizing personnel of Science Slam, participated in contacting sponsors and organized team events.

• Ariana Natalie KLAPPERT
  worked on and held our science slam presentation.

• Benedikt HÖLBLING
  one of the main organizing personnel of Science Slam, participated in contacting sponsors

• Caroline FANDREY
  helped with our presentation for the science slam.

• BÙI Hoàng Duy
  sponsoring delegate of the team.

• Gintarė MALININAITĖ
  responsible for the teams sponsoring undertakings, contacted paper companies and helped with science slam organization.

• Jan Niklas HANSEN
  co-organized Science Slam and provided contact with the CAESAR institute.

• Laura LÓPEZ NAVARRETE
  wrote an essay about crucial factors in biosafety and social implications relevant to achieving success in projects like these.

• Michael TESKE
  created and evaluated our survey about synthetic Biology.

General Project

• Balthasar SCHLOTMANN
  gave advice and motivation to the team and represented the team in iGEM meet ups with holding presentations. Balthasar also participated in the development of the project idea.

• Niklas Arndt SCHMACKE
  gave scientific advice, technical support and planned experiments for the cloning, B. Subtilis and deinking parts of the project.

• Sophia MÄDLER
  was responsible for organizing the labwork and planning experiments throughout all areas. Sophia was involved in the development of the project idea.

Wiki support

• Balthasar SCHLOTMANN
  created graphics for the wiki.

• Michael TESKE
  designed and programmed the wiki template. Michael organized the creation of the wiki.

Fallen Heroes

We would also like to thank people who are no longer involved in the project, but whose contribution was essential: Cathleen Hagemann, Mariya Chernyavska, Pavel Ryzhov, Max Schelski, Guido de Boer, Katrin Ciupka, Alena Sommer, Ashwin Shah, Clarissa Hiltl, Virginia Malchus and Paul Maier.

Human Practices support

CAESAR
We thank the Center of Advanced European Studies and Research (caesar) for providing the venue for our science slams, contact to the public and especially Christian Siegel for creating, with a lot of expertise, the movies of the slams.

Fotos

Our team's official photos were taken by Kim Hyuntae.