Team:SDU-Denmark/Team

Welcome To The Team

Team Mom

Astrid studies biomedicine, enjoys an active lifestyle with frequent biking or jogging and she really loves travelling. However, this poses a problem, because as she puts it: “I have the time, but not the money to travel as much as I want”. She joined iGEM to get an amazing experience, which could strengthen her qualifications in her field, teach her to research, and to be a part of a team with one concerted goal. And joining the big jamboree in Boston, US, was a lovely bonus. Her best experience in iGEM is the ping-pong discussion when things do not succeed, and in the end, when success is based on it. Last she is fond of baking, but the best part of baking is when others enjoy it.

The Wiki Witch

Birka is a fire breathing, number crunching, keyboard typing, soccer playing mathematician. She lives in Odense with her dog, cat and her lovely wife to whom she got married this summer and of course the SDU iGEM team was present at this marvellous event. She has been the one coding up our Wiki-page from scratch. Birka joined the team because she felt it would be an exciting challenge in her mathematical education. The best iGEM experience has been to actually witness the bacterial production of biodegradable plastic, what a wonder! Birkas number one favorite activity is performing fireshows with Cirkus Sort.

The Clone Commander

Brian is 26 years old, he moved to Odense from Roskilde in 2012. He lives with his girlfriend and their three year old son. Brian studies biomedicine, the motivation behind this study comes from the work he had done with patients with Multiple Sclerosis. But now Antimicrobial resistance fills his mind, Brian hopes that he can someday make a significant contribution on the road to new treatments. Brian joined iGEM because he wanted to experience doing ‘real’ research, both the ups and the downs. Furthermore, he needed something to keep his mind busy as he returned to the academic world, after suddenly losing his father last summer.

The Planner

Cathrine is our bubbly biomedicine student. She is a fan of having a plan but also likes to pursue her enormous curiosity. To challenge the unknown and thus diverging from the plan, she chose to join the iGEM team this year. With her drive and ambition to gain new knowledge and to be able to be innovative she hopes to get a glimpse of what the future might bring. Her best experience in iGEM has been to meet the iGEM team, with all of its faces. Including social events, open air concerts, unforgettable road trips, meetups and even a wedding! And Oh lets not forget the beers that comes with it! – and a hell of a lot of lab work.

Mr. Goldilocks

The name is Jakob and he’s 23 years old. Originally, he was born in Aarhus but unfortunately, he moved to Odense because of his parents. He studies Biology on his third year which is okay he guesses, but he has long hair and he likes to brush his hair when it’s possible, oh, yeah! The huge potential in gene manipulation did inspire Jakob and gave him a desire to know more about this scientific field through iGEM. After all he loves to be in a field of science, that has such a big potential to remodel our way of life. For Jakob the best experience have been to meet new people at the meetups. Also, he loves eating Nutella from the jar!

Super Mario

Joel is a biomedicine student often encountered in colorful clothes and with a big grin on his face. He has a strong intuitive grasp of natural science, which made iGEM a good opportunity for him to gain practical lab experience and test his abilities. In the end, meeting and getting to know many other contesters was his greatest iGEM experience and on every international meet-up he made sure to learn how to say “cheers” in a new language or two. As a kid he nicknamed himself “Super Joel”. However, as his middle name is Mario, soon his class would chant “super Mario” whenever Joel was at the blackboard.

The Movie Star

This is Mathilde, she is 21 years old and a medical student going on her 6th semester. iGEM for her, was the opportunity to try out the world of research before she decided to go for a researcher carrier. The opportunity to meet different people with different backgrounds, and to be able to create a project and work on it, was a way for her to practice her cooperative skills. Her most funny experience in iGEM has been the many roadtrips. The group has always been cheering, joyful and singing in the car. A funfact about her, is that she has lived most of her life in France and moved back to Denmark only 3 years ago.

The ICA Master

Nete is studying Chemical Engineering and therefore knows a thing or two about taking a project from the research state to the industrial scale. She only has one year left of her master degree, and after that she is hoping to work in the pharmaceutical industry. Nete signed up for iGEM, because she wanted to learn much more about how you can use GMO to develop new ways of producing products. iGEM has taught Nete to be more patient, because it can take a long time before you succeed with our experiments. But when you do, it is the best feeling! The social events and the tour to the iGEM meet-up in Marburg has been some of the best experiences.

The Klutz

Pernille has always had a great passion for changing abilities and capabilities of organisms which is why biomedicine was the perfect choice of study, here she will certainly construct the perfect mutant. iGEM was chosen because of the great possibility to get experienced in the laboratory and get a glimpse of how life will be after university. The best experience in iGEM is hard to point out, but the Meetup in Marburg was definitely an experience to remember. Pernille does her part in the laboratory by ensuring everybody gets a whole lot of experience, because of Pernilles clumsiness things might have to be done twice.

Thinker Bell

Rikke is our go-to Philosopher - because that is what she has studied for 2 years. Before philosophy she was a chef and therefore loves to cook. She is interested in bioethics, the epistemology of knowledge and philosophy of science which all are due to her background in biotechnology. She joined iGEM because of the opportunity to work a little in a labcoat instead of her reading glasses! The best experience has for Rikke been the chance to lecture some really clever “natural science” guys. She loves to read - at the moment she has more than 400 books in her apartment. Apart from that, she drinks more coffee than the rest of the iGEM team combined.

Twisty Professor

Say hello to our second redhaired team member, Rune Øbo. He is the team’s Twisty Professor because he always can twist a scientific explanation so the receiver understands it. Twisty Rune is studying Biomedicine on his 3rd year and 5th semester. He is 22 years old and originally from a town called Rynkeby. Rune is always full of energy, when he isn’t hungry, so feed him a Snickers. For Rune the iGEM project was an opportunity for him to do something new and also out of the box lab work. He learned through iGEM that communication is an important factor. He once biked 1km to catch a Bulbasaur in Pokemon GO, while a PCR was running.

PCR-King Of The World

Meet Viktor, a biologist who would seem to only know the nature of bird calls. It was a great surprise when he showed his true value. The team has named him “PCR-KING”, and for good reason. Viktor has achieved outstanding results when doing PCR reactions, and has single handedly ensured the survival of his subgroup. For Viktor iGEM was a way to finally harvest the glory that he so truly deserved. “Heavy lies the crown” they say and Viktor has learned that being the king of PCR, meant that he is now obligated to do every last bit of every PCR reaction. Viktor loves the iGEM meetups, but lab work is fun as well. - He has the best ass in waders.