Team:BABS UNSW Australia/Team
Undergraduates
Rhys Keirle
G'day I'm Rhys, nice to meet you. I’m currently in my third year of a Science degree majoring in Biotechnology. Outside of uni I am a keen traveler, with plans to get my skis on in Japan later this year. I also have a passion for gymnastics and coach on a regular basis, with a little training, competition and judging on the side. See you in Boston!
Manan Shah
You would not be able to guess that about 3 and a half years ago I said that "I would never do science at university" considering all I talk about now is science. I am now a 3rd year Advanced Science student majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology. To minimise the non-science part of my life, or what some people would call a social life, I decided to do iGEM! As part of the team, I have mainly been in the lab and have been working on the wiki. Kristen Perry
I’m a third year Advanced Science student majoring in Pathology, enjoying a little molecular biology adventure on the side. iGEM has been such an interesting opportunity for me and I’m incredibly thankful for the support our team has received thus far. When I’m not in the lab (or pretending to know how to design things), I love to hike, climb and canyon.Mackenzie Labine-Romain
Hi I’m Mac and I’m in my last year of an Adv. Sci. Biotechnology and Microbiology degree. I have a debilitating fear of free time, so thought iGEM would be perfect for me. Turns out I was right!!! On a serious note, learning more about synthetic biology has drastically expanded my repertoire of science-based puns and pick up lines, and for this I am grateful… “Girl, are you E. coli? Because you’re a model organism.”Isabelle Capell-Hattam
When Isabelle was 8 her mum banned her from doing science experiments in the kitchen. Now that she's moved out she does science where ever she feels like (though mostly in the lab)- take that mum. I'm a 3rd year Adv. Sci. Molecular and Cell Biology major who has dabbled a bit with cholesterol regulation. I'm not really sure what role I play on the UNSW iGEM team, but I'm pretty darn good at making people use positive and negative controls. For the month of September I have survived off coffee and sour straps, it takes great fuel to fuel great minds. Benjamin Jones
Ben was a 2nd year B. Med Sci. student at UNSW and aspired to be a doctor. From the get go Ben was super keen to get involved and brought along an infectious enthusiasm to the group. One of his favourite ideas for iGEM was to further investigate the potential of the Type 3 secretion system (T3SS) for use in human therapies, something he had previously worked on with Dr Lawrence Lee at the Victor Chang Center for Cardiac research. Tragically, on the 2nd of April 2015 Ben passed away aged 25 years. Ben was the incredibly loved brother of Samuel Jones, Son of Barbara and Lindsay Jones and adored by all who knew him.
Mentors
Daniel Winter
Daniel is doing his PhD in Proteomics and Systems Biology at UNSW under Prof. Marc Wilkins after completing his BSc in Molecular Biology and MSc in Structural Biology at University Paris Diderot. Unsatisfied with how busy he had been with his doctoral research, Daniel decided to step up and oversee the iGEM team alongside Dr Chris Marquis to make sure no more free hours were left in his days. Daniel has a dark side: when not at the lab bench surrounded by tube racks, you’ll find him at the bench or the power rack in the gym preparing for the next powerlifting competition.
Dr Chris Marquis
Chris received a B.Sc. degree in Chemistry and B.E degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney. After working as a research assistant on a project sponsored by CSL and doing some travelling, he returned to complete a PhD at the University of Sydney in bioreactor design and operation for antibody producing mammalian cell lines. He was appointed as a Lecturer at the University of New South Wales in 1994 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2004.Chris’s current interests include the development of lipases for biodiesel production, understanding the regulation of soluble hydrogenase expression in Cupriavidius necator and in the development of recombinant enzymes for bioremediation applications. And iGEM.
Prof. Marc Wilkins
In 1994, Marc Wilkins developed the concept of the proteome and coined the term. In 1997 he co-wrote and co-edited the first book on proteomics (4,000+ copies sold). This, and a series of other seminal works, substantially contributed to the establishment of the proteome and of proteome research. Proteomics is the most widely adopted of the new -omics, is now included in biochemistry textbooks and the undergraduate curriculum. Marc's research is currently focused on discovering the protein interaction code and new protein methylation enzymes.