Team:Heidelberg/Team

Some biologists have worked a lot in vivo, some chose to work in vitro. Three years ago Lukas chose to work in silico and moved to Karlsruhe so he could do his bachelor in Computer Science. Three years later, equipped with a B.Sc., he finally turned to the living parts of science, moved to Heidelberg and began to study Molecular Biotechnology. Fascinated by the combination of engineering and biology he became part of the iGEM Team Heidelberg 2015. Throughout the project he supported us with his immense knowledge about programming, yet also found some time to help in the lab. Also, without him, the Wiki would’ve been a static wasteland without all the cool features.
Christine is very reliable, honest and is always willing to lend a helping hand. She is great fun to be with and a fun-loving girl. Although she is very focused on her studies she also takes time off to relax and enjoy with her friends too. She is one of the most cheery people I have ever met - she is our sunshine in the lab- every time you look at her face there is a light smile on her lips. As our youngest team member she was totally excited to start in the wet lab and put in a lot of effort to get the CLICK reaction working. While relaxing from her subproject she loves to draw. It’s her hand you see in our Human Practice video and she also designed the poster for the discussion evening and created parts of the wiki drawings. As a healthy life style is very important to her, she eminently takes care not to contaminate others and herself with any bacteria or chemicals and always finds time to cook her lunch instead of eating in the canteen. She even drank Max’s power spinach smoothie, without flinching.
Max or better to say Mäxchen is mixing everything with spinach. He was particullary thrilled by the idea of providing the community with a variable toolbox to track biochemistry with spinach and spared no effort to develop one. This fits perfectly with his private passion of gardening. He grows everything in his garden and if there are no bees around he fertilizes his pumpkin plant manually. Besides all the spinach Max was involved in the human practice projects and organized together with Jasmine the discussion evening and managed the video project. If you asked Max about how important and how urgent the things he has to do in the next week are, he’d say having fun in the lab is very important but as he always had lots of fun working it wasn’t that urgent compared for example to ordering new primers. When working with Max you will learn about a lot, especially what new nicknames some got during the last couple of hour and how Taylor Swift is dancing.
The quiet working power. Whenever there was another cloning with issues she would work as hard as necessary to get it working or find hidden mistakes in ordered sequences. Even during the times when she worked single handedly on her subproject she invested every single minute she didn’t spent sleeping in the lab getting the project running. Next to pushing her project she also organized the discussion evening and especially was responsible to invited all the speaker. Being a member of the Human Practice committee she contributed many creative ideas regarding the video project and the poster design. Her wonderful western blotting skills were very valuable for the AptaBody project.
Day or night time… you’ll find Michael in the lab fighting the invasions of bugs but he always overcame every single one. If the team asked Michael if he wanted to join the rest for lunch or dinner he answered he’d happily join for breakfast. It happen rather often that if you left the lab at 10 or 11 pm and came back the following morning that Michael was still there coding. This might explain his breakfast habits. He takes his energy from salmiak and energy drinks. You can ask him for anything he’ll have a software to solve the issue. And if he came cheerful into the lab holding a microtiterplate in his hand everyone knew he came back from the plate reader and was able to confirm some of his in silico developed aptamer candidates in vitro.
Tim contributed to the team not only with his lab-skills but also with all this programming and wiki stuff I don’t understand. He was extremely important to the team and always was a person who could calm everyone down when everything seemed to get crazy. If you needed help with anything Tim was always there to help you. Tim is passionate about science and technology, which is probably one of the many reasons why he decided to join the igem-team this year. He is a charismatic, self-confident and determined person, who will convince you that Dr. Who is one of the best series ever. He is the kind of person who knows what he wants and who won't lose without a fight. During his free time, he likes to watch series, play warhammer, plan revolutions, hang out with his friends and… . Who are we kidding no one in iGEM has a whole lot of free time.
Daniel is one of the smallest members of our team ;) - but he dreams bigger than anyone else. His capabilities of organizing and planning things has brought the team a lot forward. Besides, his inexhaustible enthusiasm for the project not only helped him, but also others, even during tough times. Apart from organizing and working a lot in the CF-project and the AptaBody wet lab work, he was working enthusiastically on the sponsoring. Using his very kind, yet indomitable way of convincing people, he has gained us a lot of support of sponsors. If not working until late night, Daniel does probably anything but sports … and mathematics. He is very spontaneous and would never say no to an evening out or a round of laser tag, at least as long as he can take his car there and no photos are taken ... like ... ever.
Frieda is definitely one of the most experienced members of the team, not only concerning the work with functional nucleic acids, but with labwork in general. Due to her experience from her bachelors thesis where she was working with DNAzymes, she brought a lot of expertise to the general planning of the project as well as the subproject she has been working on: the detection of small molecules such as rape drugs, and the readout. Her surname (Sorgenfrei) translates to worriless and naturally she gave her all to keep the entire team as far away from worries as possible, including both: pointing out that having fun in the lab is one of the most important things (including the wearing of colorful leggins) and aiding others to compromise disputes whenever possible. These two things earned her the nick name "lab mom" and it really accurately describes here care for the team and the project. Apart from the lab work of the Rape Drug detection subproject, Frieda was involved in the sponsoring and the development and experimental validation of the RFC.
Hendrik is an enthusiastic and skilled team member who is very fascinated by his tasks. Having a very good working morale and laboratory experience, he is spending most of the time working in the lab with cloning and transforming E.coli and his beloved competent yeast cells. He likes to spend his little spare time with some friends talking about his work. When it comes to cloning or transformations, he is the right person to ask for. During iGEM, he worked wholeheartedly for the cystic fibrosis project, even if that ment cloning of hundreds and hundreds of yeast samples. Although there is a pile of work to manage sometimes, Hendrik is a quite balanced and organized working partner with whom it can also make much fun to work. Besides iGEM, Hendrik studies Molecular Biotechnology, as most of the others in the team.
Stefan is, despite his young age, already an iGEM veteran - namely of the first iGEM High School team from Heidelberg (2012). He is very helpful and obliging and shares his knowledge about working in the lab with anyone who requires it. Besides labwork, Stefan is dealing with programming and software, specifically he validated the software by screening 96-well plates with his newly found robotic friend and using modelling for parameter estimation. Before having been drawn to the “dark side” (of dry lab work), he was furthermore working on the Pulse-Chase project. Apart from iGEM, Stefan is currently in the second semester of Molecular Biotechnology. Besides, he is a highly talented photographer of both, people and the beauty of nature, and can make (literally) anybody look acceptable on photo. To describe is weird and funny character to the full extent would fill up this page completely.