After completing the third semester in Biotechnology at the RWTH Aachen, I decided to take a semester off to participate in the iGEM competition. I heard about iGEM in a lecture and found the aspects of synthetic biology and the possibility to be part of a self-managed, independent student reasearch team very appealing. Looking back, I really learned a lot, not only about labwork and designing experiments, but also about teamwork and communicating synthetic biology to the public. All in all it was a great semester and although it was stressful at times, I really enjoyed being part of the iGEM competition.

xxx

I participated in the iGEM competition to get new experiences in the field of sythetic biology because it is a very fascinating and exciting topic in my studies for me. Therefore, I took a study semester off to concentrate completely on the new challenge. During the iGEM project I have learned to design several experiments and to do different kinds of work in the lab. I also gained experiences in presenting a project to an audience and countless more. These experiences will influence my future academic studies. In my spare time I do gymnastics and I have successfully been doing Cyr Wheel for 2 years winning the silver medal at the world championships 2015.

Besides my master's studies in Biology at RWTH Aachen University I wanted to learn more about project management and working in a self-organizing team of students. The iGEM competition and the iGEM Team Aachen are the right opportunity to seize it. Learning more about the experiment design and data analysis was great. It was also a great experience to see and get the support of the people from the different institutes, which were not directly involved in our iGEM project. In my free time I like to go swimming and participate in debates at the university's debating club (the latter happens to seldom due to iGEM and my studies, unfortunately).

"Everything happens for a reason". I studied Electronics and Communication Engineering for bachelors and disliked it for most of the 4 years. Finally I got a chance to study Biomedical Engineering in Aachen, which brings me closer to my areas of interest. When I heard about the iGEM competition, it matched perfectly with the kind of biological laboratory experience I was looking for. But with the first team meeting, being singled out as one of the 2 engineers, I set out to help with building up on the last year's device - WatsOn, to begin with, and then to build a DIY, mini scale bioreactor and thereby never reached the biology laboratory. Nevertheless it was fun, and much, much more.

The studies of electrical engineering are quiet theoretical, so for a long time I wanted to do something practical. Than I came across iGEM competition from a neighbour and was fascinated about the possibility to do some practical work in a scientific context and, even more, think outside the box of my subject and explore things far beyond. But fast I realized that there are many connections between biology and electrical engineering, problems that none of the subjects can solve on its own but that we will work on together. And therefor it is common opportunities. This is what makes iGEM such a great matter to me.

After completing my third semester I wanted to get into the lab and use Synthetic Biology to build something new. For that reason, I dedicated my entire summer term to our iGEM project. Over the past few months I was able to contribute to a diverse field of work and enjoyed working in a team of complementary strengths. I particularly enjoyed the exchange with other iGEMers and supporters. Besides my studies I am interested in cooking and city travels.

I completed my undergrad degree in biotechnology at FH Aachen University and wrote my bachelor thesis about: "Characterization of an anti-Muc1 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)" at the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne. For me participating in the iGEM is a great opportunity to look beyond the horizon. To handle our own research project we have to take various tasks into consideration: fundraising, labwork, public relations and many others. For me this complexity made iGEM so exciting! In my free time I love spending time with my friends and sailing at the Rursee.

This is my second year within the iGEM community. I am still fascinated by synthetic biology and the possibility to realize a research project from scratch to finalization within an interdisciplinary team. Based on the experience gained through our first participation in the iGEM competition I wanted to help this year's team from Aachen to perform even better than our first team and to prevent some of the mistakes we did last year. Besides participating in iGEM I work as a student assistant at the RWTH Aachen's Institute for Molecular Biotechnology (BIO VII). In my student assistant job I am mainly involved in the purification of plant made biopharmaceuticals from tobacco. In my spare time I like to do sports such as Volleyball and Badminton.

Fascinated by natural sciences I participated in different international science competitions during my school time because spreading innovative ideas to the public always seemed important to me in case of advancing solutions for challanges of our society. My enthusiasm of natural sciences, the chance to improve my soft skills and learn new scientific hard skills within the great atmosphere of an interdisciplinary student team have mainly motivated me to participate in the iGEM competition 2015. In my opinion my iGEM experiences have offered me interesting insights in biochemistry, synthetic biology and correlated lab work that I would not have learned in my chemical studies. The combination of exciting wetlab experience, weekly English team meetings, the possibility to creatively get involved in diverse sub topics e.g. fundraising, design tasks or public relations is shortly summarized that was iGEM is about based on my experiences. These key possibilities together with my great team members have resulted in one year of hard work as well as pleasure to me. I am sure that these experiences are going to support my future work as a chemist. As a balance to my research work I like to spend time with my family and go on bicycle or jogging adventures with friends in nature.

When last years iGEM competition was over, I decided to take part for a second time before proceeding with my master studies. In 2014 we had done some mistakes when it came to project management and learned a lot. So early into this years project, I focused on our internal infrastructure and became responsible for teaching our new team members what's important in iGEM and how synthetic biology works in the lab.

During my studies I realized that I like to challenge myself and dig into new topics. Therefore I took a varity of course and challenged myself to get an understanding in the different fields of biology, chemistry, physics and informatics. I soon found interdisciplinary sciences to combine the different topics to create incredible solutions for the problems of our time. Until my first contact with the synthetic biology, I worked in biomimetics, taking courses, programming genetic algorithms and even doing my bachelor thesis in this field. When I heard about the iGEM project, I participated because it is not only interdisciplinary, but also allows students to develope their own project. Our Instructor and Advisor are always willing to answer our questions but also give us the freedom to work independently on our project. Therefore, everyone makes incredible valuable experiences. I personally focused on coordinations and colaborations, learning not only about synthetic biology but also about important softskills.

xxx

My name is Laura and I major in Molecular and Applied Biotechnology at RWTH Aachen. During my third semester I learned about iGEM and was fascinated by the possibility to plan and execute an independent scientific project in the early phase of my studies. Therefore, I took a semester off to join the team Aachen. For me the project was a great opportunity to share my ideas with other motivated students, to profit from their diverse abilities and to have a great summer. By now I can say that I learned a lot about designing experiments and working in the lab, but also about organizing a team and how to present synthetic biology to the public. In my free time, I like to do sports, especially playing golf. Apart from that, I enjoy reading a thrilling book or cooking with friends.

Last year I did my Bachelor Thesis at the "Institute of Applied Microbiology" (iAMB) in "Developing an E. coli expression system for high throughput analysis". The same year, we founded and run the first iGEM Team of Aachen with the project "Cellock Holmes - A Case of Identity". In October I will be starting the 2. year of my master studies of Molecular and Applied Biotechnology. The iGEM experience 2014 was so overwhelming that I had to be part of it once more! I felt obliged to help the next team, but got so excited about the new project and team that I became a member again. The opportunity to manage such a huge and diverse project in combination with the work in an multinational, interdisciplinary team is what fascinates me the most. Similar to last year, I mainly focus on communication, presentation and coordination.Apart from the iGEM work, I like to ride my bike, enjoy a nice match of Tennis and love to go dancing with my girlfriend.

After three semesters of theoretical studies of Biotechnology in Aachen, it was perfectly time to gain some practical experiences for me. Thus, having a great summer with an iGEM project, together with many motivated students was the perfect opportunity. It sounds like a cliché, but I learned much more in this very intense time than I ever expected. It was awesome to experience team work in an interdisciplinary group and to get in contact with iGEM members from other towns. When I'm not doing iGEM stuff, I do sports, make cakes, dance and meet my friends outside the laboratory.

Before participating in iGEM I've been studying Molecular Biotechnology for three semesters. iGEM is a great opportunity for me to get a first insight in scientific work.

Being a student of Electronics and Instrumentation from India, I came here to Germany to study Biomedical Engineering because of my facination towards medical and biological instruments. During my Bioinformatics Lecture one day I was introduced to the plan and the idea of iGEM. The one thing that made me join this team was the fact that I could use my own ideas and work on Biological Instruments. This great Opertunity helped me develop hardware and software. Learning and working with theories and plans outside the box is what I am good at because I have always been involved in practical hardware projects. Hardware circuit designing and interfacing with software and arduino firmware is always complicated, this makes it much more fun to integrate and compensate the electronics by burning or in technical terms "overheating" the system. While building this Bioreactor I learned that sometimes burning circuits helps you to understand which is the correct way and which is not.

Before coming in contact with synthetic biology i was mainly interested in the field of molecular medicine in which I wrote my bachelor thesis and mained my master courses. After finishing my third master semester I thought for a challenge. The idea of participating in the creation of a whole project with pepole whom i did not know intrigued me. To see every aspect of such a project from the design of the molecular approach combined with projectmanagement to fundraising and communication to the outerworld unfold right before my eyes, not to underestimate the experience with such amazing people will let me remember this time forever. I am grateful for this experience! My hobbys involve photography, cooking and being a movie junkie.

I am working as a Subgroup Leader in Prof. Schwaneberg research group at the Institute of Biotechnology, RWTH Aachen. The research area of the Schwaneberg group focuses on directed protein evolution by developing novel methods for generating diversity at the gene level, analyzing consequences of mutational biases on the protein level and developing novel high-throughput screening systems that will lead to improved biocatalysts for prominent applications in industry.

In particular, my core expertise is development of high throughput screening systems for different enzyme classes in order to redefine the screening step no longer as bottleneck in directed evolution.In iGEM, I enjoyed very much to work with highly motivated and ambitious young scientists from RWTH Aachen University. I truly believe that our collaboration has just started and that we will enjoy jointly solving the scientific challenges in the near future.

I joined the lab of Prof. Lars Blank at RWTH Aachen University in September 2012, for my post-doctoral research on investigating the glycerol metabolism in E. coli for bio-product synthesis. During my Ph.D, I worked under the guidance of Prof. Andreas Schmid (2008-2012) at TU Dortmund, and Prof. Matthias Reuss (2009-2011) at the University of Stuttgart, with a focus on elucidating the link between the central and aromatic metabolism of P. putida using a systems biology approach.

I'm fascinated about understanding the collective dynamic behavior of microorganisms and their metabolic potential in different niches. Hence to decipher the metabolic dynamics, I use the tools of metabolic engineering & systems biology such as metabolomics, fast sampling, kinetic/dynamic modeling and metabolic flux analysis.In iGEM, I enjoy working with a group of young scientists from Aachen to achieve our common goal enabling bacteria to grow on methanol and accumulate glycogen. Besides science, I try to get myself involved in adventurous sports...but honestly... I just like to relax my day with a delicious meal and a good sci-fi movie! ;-)

The Schwaneberg Group seeks to be at the research frontier in the interdisciplinary field of directed protein evolution by developing novel methods for generating diversity at the gene level, analyzing consequence of mutational biases on the protein level and developing novel high-throughput screening systems that will ultimately lead to tailored-biocatalysts for significant applications in industry.

They train students in the cutting edge technologies of laboratory evolution,biocatalyst engineering and high throughput screening methodologies. The Schwaneberg Group believes in integrating fundamental principles of protein design with environmental awareness in their research and seeks to promote international scientific collaborations. Read more about Prof. Schwaneberg and his work on the Schwaneberg Group's website.

Prof. Wiechert's main area of work lies within the field of applied systems bio(techno)logy of microorganisms with a special focus on methodological developments for quantitative biology. Characteristics of his research work are a close integration of experimental and theoretical work within multi disciplinary projects. As the head of the Systems Biotechnology research division at Forschungszentrum Jülich, he is developing methods for quantitative metabolomics, fluxomics and proteomics including model based mathematical methods for experimental design, parameter estimation, and process optimization in biotechnological systems.

Future work will also incorporate micro fluidic methods for single cell analysis. In general, all research results are used to drive forward the process of gaining knowledge in the course of an iterative improvement of industrial production systems. This proceeds in close cooperation of all working groups at the IBG-1.Together with industrial partners also diverse examples from industry are investigated and further developed. Read more about Prof. Wiechert's work on the IBG-1 website.

Prof. Blank focuses his research on fundamental and applied aspects of microbial metabolism. Of specific interest is the interaction between the metabolic network and the introduced genetic and environmental perturbations. The research on in silico/in vivo metabolic network operations is aimed at a deeper understanding of cell function, with the ultimate goal of rational cell engineering.

In his teaching, Prof. Blank focuses on the integration of biological concepts with the tools from bioinformatics and engineering. He believes that a sound knowledge base in life sciences is the key for creative and thus successful work in the areas of Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology. Read more about Prof. Blank's work on the iAMB's website.