Difference between revisions of "Team:UNC-Chapel Hill/Team"

Undergraduate Students

Connor McFadden

Connor McFadden is a Sophomore from Yardley, Pennsylvania double majoring in Biology and Chemistry with an interest in gene therapy and genetics. He has previously worked in the Zhang Lab at UNC focusing on enzymes affecting RNA-i and hopes to pursue more genetics-oriented research with iGEM. He is a member of the Undergraduate Honor Court and Student Rural Health Coalition (Fremont) at UNC. In his free time, he enjoys gaming, reading and playing pick-up soccer.

Sean Johnson

Sean is from Winston-Salem North Carolina and is a Senior Biology B.S. major. iGEM is his first wet lab experience. Sean is currently applying to medical school, hopefully pursuing a career as an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine. Outside of iGEM, Sean participates in HYPE, which is an after school tutoring program for elementary school children living in Chapel Hill-Carrboro low-income, public housing communities. Also, he is the Vice President of Men’s Club Basketball here at UNC.

Jerry Zhang

Jerry is a sophomore from Raleigh, NC majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in Computer Science. He hopes to pursue a career in medicine as a surgeon and is a member of the Alpha Epsilon Delta pre-health honors society. iGEM was his first research experience and he hopes to use the skills he gained this summer to find a position in another synthetic biology laboratory. Outside of iGEM, Jerry is a violinist in the UNC Symphony Orchestra and enjoys swimming on the UNC club swim team.

Will Church

Will is a native of West Jefferson, North Carolina and is a Senior studying Biology (BS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Under the Frank Conlon lab, he studies the development of congenital heart defects in mammalian models relating to the Nucleosome Remodeling and Deacetylase Complex (NuRD). An Advocate of the Community Empowerment Fund and volunteer of the NC Missions of Mercy program, Will believes that everyone should receive the support and assistance needed to live happy, healthy fulfilling lives. In his free time, he enjoys gardening, flameworking, gaming and hiking. Quickly nearing the end of his undergraduate education, Will plans on pursuing a career in Dentistry.

Samuel Elliot Krause

Elliot is a sophomore from Chicago, Illinois. He is a Biomedical Engineering and Biochemistry double major with a minor in mathematics. In addition to being a member of the UNC iGEM team, he is working in the Asokan labs developing a better mouse model using Cmah and MPS1 genes. He is also a part of the Helping Hands club, who provide prosthetic hands for no cost to children who have lost fingers or even larger parts of their hand. In his free time he enjoys playing ultimate frisbee and chess.

Danny Oh

Danny is a sophomore from Greensboro, North Carolina. He is a Biology major with a minor in Marine Sciences. In addition to the iGEM lab, he is working in the Asokan Lab on various experiments with Adeno Associated Virus (AAV). He also volunteers at the UNC Hospital Systems. He spends his free time playing tennis with the club tennis team and troubleshooting computer problems with ResNET at UNC.

Advisers

Shawn Gomez

Dr. Shawn Gomez is an Associate Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies at UNC-CH. He received both his B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado. He then went on the receive his Eng.Sc.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University. His lab is primarily a bioinformatics and computational modeling group that is studying biological processes from an integrated, or systems viewpoint - also known as Systems Biology.

Erin Borchardt

Erin is a fifth year PhD student in the Genetics and Molecular Biology Curriculum at UNC-CH and is completing her thesis research in the lab of Dr. Aravind Asokan. Her research focuses on developing gene regulation tools by manipulating RNA stability and translation. She’s excited to be involved with iGEM at UNC after enjoying her experience as an undergrad on the 2010 University of Illinois iGEM team.

Bryan Johnson

Bryan is a graduate student at UNC-CH. He recieved his bachelors degree at the Texas A&M University, and is currently researching the manipulation of the ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) mediated DNA damage response by human papillomavirus (HPV), and the implications of this activation for viral replication and the development of cervical cancer.

Victor Tse

Victor is a post-doc who received his PhD from Cornell University. He is a citizen of Hong Kong however has lived in the United States since his undergraduate years. His thesis was based on the Molecular Determinants of Influenza A Virus Activation. He is currently working with antibody effectiveness on Adeno-Associated Viruses. In his free time Victor plays soccer and tames wolves.