What would we do without Marcelo? Throughout the summer, Marcelo was not only our advisor - he was our mentor, our lab father-figure and most importantly, our friend.

He has been involved in all of the aspects of our project. He taught us all the tips and tricks for working in the lab; he helped us get funding and sponsorship; he was our voice in our institution; and he was heavily involved in all of the animation and 3D modeling in our project.

Without Marcelo, our team would never have come together. Thank you so much, Marcelo. Words can never express our gratitude for you.

Without Mattéa, there is no Team NAIT 2015. Alongside Marcelo, Mattéa was directly involved in bringing our team together.

She is our lab guardian - making sure we always had everything we needed to carry out and complete our experiments. From protocols to ordering reagents, we could always count on Mattéa. She was always willing to sacrifice her time and bestow us with her knowledge and extensive lab experience.

We are so thankful for her involvement in this project. We've learned so much from her and we are proud to say that she is our mentor and friend. Thank you so much, Mattéa. We could never repay you for your kindness (and your patience with us).

Humble, intelligent, passionate, kind, handsome, guapo - these are just some of the few words that we can use to describe our team leader and captain, Eduardo.

He was instrumental in our entire project. He took responsibility for the majority of the lab work and conducting of experiments. In addition to that, Eduardo kept our entire group organized and focused on our end goal. Eduardo really had a hand in everything - he attended meetings on behalf of our team, he conducted research and assisted in literature review, filled out our lab log books with David (with extreme neatness), and somehow, he was always willing to do more. Eduardo never missed a day coming into lab, and even came in on the weekends.

Eduardo has truly been an indispensable asset to the team and an even better friend. We could always count on him to listen, advise and provide the emotional support in this chapter of our lives. Friends are the siblings that we were not originally given. It is an honor for us to be your "siblings" - to be your iGEM family. Thank you, Eduardo, oh Captain, our captain.

You will never meet a kinder, more loyal man than Mr. David Barilla. Although he was extremely busy balancing work, iGEM, and family - he always made time to come to NAIT everyday and work on our project - even if that meant losing precious sleep and workout time.

In our team, David spearheaded the documentation of our experiments and protocols; kept us all grounded and sane; wrote SOPs and logbooks; developed our modified silver stain protocol; and helped in the lab to run experiments (plasmid precipitation, cloning, and mini-prep among many) with Eduardo. David even went as far as learning to code HTML to try and share the load with his more computer savvy team mates.

"Best friends are people who make your problems their problems, just so you don't have to go through it alone." There is no better way to describe David. He always knows the right thing to say to bring a smile to everyone's face. He has an amazing sense of humor but also knows when to get down to business. Thank you, David. The summer has been an absolutely amazing experience with you in the lab! We will always treasure your random bursts of classic rock and even your incredible (yet sometimes outrageous) ideas.

Joe is the light of our team. His incredible sense of optimism has really helped our team stay positive throughout all the speed bumps of our project. Without Johannes to brighten our lab days with his ramblings and non sequiturs, our iGEM journey would have been much more stressful. Thankfully, he was present everyday to keep us lighthearted.

Joe really is Mr. Congeniality. As our "HR Guy" he has really gone above and beyond all of our expectations. Throughout the project, Joe was our public voice and was in charge of all external relations such as collaborations, looking for sponsorship and even managing our Twitter account. In addition to public relations, Joe was also heavily involved in lab work. He assisted David in developing our silver stain protocol and helped develop our experimental design with Mattéa.

A day without our friend Joe is very quiet, and almost lonely. His presence (and sneeze) fills the entire room with a kind of light and positivity that many people lack or take for granted. Joe has the ability to see the silver lining in the darkest storm cloud and for that, we are very thankful. Thank you, Joe! May your beard grow strong and great.

Abbie is one of the most caring, friendly and empathetic people you will ever meet. Between assisting with Logo and Banner design, reviewing the literature, helping Johannes out with the policy and practices, and assisting with lab work, she finds the time to have a full time job and maintain a balance between them. Always concerned with the well being of the group, she goes out of her way to make sure that everyone stays healthy, happy and mentally sound.

Thank you so much, Abbie. Although you couldn't be with us all the time in lab, we always knew you were there in spirit - whether it be a GIF image sent in chat or popping in in the late afternoon after your other shift. "Good friends are like stars, you can't always see them but you know they're always there." Abbie is our good friend and has been a shining star in our team.

Meh

Throughout the summer, Kevin was extremely busy working full time while also helping out our iGEM team. Though most of his contribution was done outside of NAIT, we could not have grown into the team we are today without Kevin Setzer.

Kevin mostly worked with Joy in the coding and designing of Team NAIT's Wiki sites. He was the bug exterminator, the very necessary second pair of eyes involved in editing all the HTML, CSS and dreaded Java that coded our wiki. Additionally, Kevin also helped in the post-production processes of our 3D animation (i.e: After Effects and Photoshop editing). When he could, Kevin also came to the lab to help prepare reagents necessary for processes and experiments later in the day.

Although busy, Kevin tried his best to find time and help out our iGEM team. Thank you, Kevin! Together we can take our iGEM project to infinity... and beyond!