Attributions

It would have been difficult for us, as students to come this far on the road to Boston without the following people who have helped us in many ways. We would like to thank each and everyone for their support, guidance and encouragement

Advisors

Anders Virtanen

Anders Virtanen is a professor at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology and the director of the Uppsala RNA Research Centre (URRC). Anders studies primarily enzymes involved in regulating fate and function of the plethora of RNA molecules in the cell. Another goal of his is to develop novel antibiotics targeting RNA molecules. He has been our supervisor and a course administrator for the university course related to our project.

Gunnar Johansson

Gunnar Johansson is a professor in Biochemistry at Uppsala University. His research focuses on enzyme nanotechnology and sustainable materials technology based on biomass. Gunnar has been at our brainstorming sessions in the beginning of our project and provided his suggestions and advice on the feasibility of our project. He has helped us by providing chemicals and protocols for chromatographic techniques, sonication and SDS-PAGE.

Mikael Nissbeck

PhD student at Uppsala RNA Research Center (URRC), Department of Cell and Molecular biology, at Uppsala University since 2012 and is currently working with the human enzyme Poly(A)-specific ribonuclease (PARN) in the Anders Virtanen group at the Uppsala Biomedical Center. Mikael has provided us with help and guidance when we had problem with protocols and in obtaining good results. He also assisted us with ordering primers, enzymes and reagents.

Sethu Madhava Rao Gunja

Research Assistant at Chemical Biology group, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology in Uppsala University since 2012 and is currently working on Physiological characterisation of human enzyme Poly(A)-specific ribonuclease (PARN) in the Anders Virtanen group at the Uppsala Biomedical Center. Sethu has provided us with help and guidance over the methods that were used, specifically vacuum centrifugation and TLC. He also assisted us with ordering enzymes and reagents.

Anthony Forster

Anthony Forster is a professor at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology and a member of the Uppsala RNA Research Centre (URRC). He is researching synthetic biology, protein synthesis and drug discovery and is currently working towards the synthesis of a minimal cell. Anthony has provided us with valuable feedback and guidance during our initial meetings.

Support

Erik Gullberg: He provided his advice about protein purification techniques and fluorometer characterisation.

Erik Lundin: For providing us with advice on fluorometric tests and MACS testing.

Maria Wilén: For being our lab officer and helping us with lab safety and materials.

Uppsala iGEM Foundation: For making sure that iGEM Uppsala lives on, and acting as a general contact between all previous Uppsala iGEM teams.

IBG: For helping us create a University course, so we can use our own lab and help us cover many of our costs.

Laura Lehmann: She is a Master Student in the Group of Sebastian Deindl at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. Her specialization is expression and purification of proteins for crystallization purposes. Her help proved invaluable when attempting to do large-scale expression cultures of BL21DE3 E.coli cells containing pSB1C3 with catechol 1,2 dioxygenase. Because of provided materials, lab equipment, work protocols and advice, the team was successful in expressing, purifying and characterising the enzyme of interest and improving documentation of an already existing BioBrick™

Kunishige Kataoka: For providing us with the sequence for the modified laccase.

Sanna Koskiniemi:

Kumari Ubhayasekara: She is currently working in the project related to lipidomics. She helped us in characterisation studies of biosurfactant.

Jolanta Levenfors:She is a researcher in the microbiology department at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Helped in providing us with the Pseudomonas chlororaphis.

Jan Roelof van der Meer: For providing us with the Pseudomonas putida strain Ppg7 and advice regarding how to grow it.