Support & Acknowledgements:
We would never have been able to proceed on our iGEM journey without the input and immeasurable expertise of our supervisors and advisors. Given the novelty of this field we have relied on the insight of a huge range of individuals, and we extend our gratitude to every single one of them.
Supervisors:
Professor Anil Wipat is a Professor of Bioinformatics at the School of Computing Science. He co-directs Newcastle's Interdisciplinary Computing and Complex BioSystems (ICOS) research group and is also affiliated with the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology and co-director of the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Bioexploitation. Anil's experience in both biology and computing science proved extremely useful in guiding the project through to completion.
Dr Thomas Howard is a senior lecturer in microbiology in the School of Biology and led the inaugural University of Exeter entry into the iGEM competition and has been involved in iGEM ever since. He is now hosting the wet-lab aspects of the Newcastle iGEM 2016 team, and his extensive microbial knowledge informed the feasibility and development of our ideas.
Dr Jem Stach is a senior lecturer in microbiology in the School of Biology and worked on discovering the novel antibiotic abyssomycin that can potentially be used to treat MRSA. Jem's expertise in microbial genetics was instrumental in developing our biobrick submissions.
Dr Dana Ofiteru is a lecturer in the School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials and secured use of COMSOL finite element analysis modeling software for our team and delivered training therein, as well as facilitating use of equipment for measuring specific heat capacity.
Advisors:
Dr Martin Sim is a research associate in the Badilley-Clarke building working as part of the ICOS group, using molecular & synthetic biology for wastewater treatment. He has mentored and advising the team on molecular biology techniques and in silico design.
Dr Matthew Peake is a research technician in the Devonshire Building, and is involved in and supports molecular, microbial & synthetic biology projects. He has mentored and advised the team on microbiology and demonstrated practical laboratory techniques.
James Skelton is a PhD student based in the school of computing science, developing bioinformatics pipelines and methods to facilitate the development of synthetic biology approaches to wastewater treatment. He has mentored the team in rule-based modelling approaches.
Michael Martyn is an MSc Synthetic Biology student who mentored the team on generating in silico models (including rule-based modelling) and wiki design.
Community:
Professor Angharad Gatehouse has the Chair of Invertebrate Molecular Biology at Newcastle University and was ranked third in the world ratings for her citations on GM crops. She discussed ethics and human practices with the team, commenting on public opinions on genetically modified organisms.
Professor Martin Hanczyc is head of Hanczyc Lab and is a Principal Investigator at the University of Trento. He graciously shared his knowledge of microbial fuel cells with us and gave insight into the future of these technologies. http://www.martinhanczyc.com/
Dr Jochen Friedl, postdoc researcher of batteries for providing us with the equipment and expertise to facilitate our conductivity testing.
Dr Andrew Filby, head of the Flow Cytometry Core Facility at Newcastle University for helping guide us through the flow cytometry procedure for the interlab study.
Dr Ed Milner, Dr Paniz Izadi and Professor Ian Head for showing us their work on microbial fuel cells, explaining best practice for their manufacture and providing us with the materials to build our own cell.
Dr Goksell Misirli met with team to discuss standard virtual parts and simulator architecture.
A huge thank you to FabLab Sunderland for providing expertise on 3D printing and product manufacture. http://www.fablabsunderland.org/
MakerSpace Newcastle for offering practical 3D manufacture advice from the local community http://www.makerspace.org.uk/
Lorraine Ward from John Adams Customer Services and the Product Designer team for providing feedback on their design rationale and strategy when producing electronics kits for children. http://www.johnadams.co.uk/home.php