Team:Virginia Tech/Team

From 2011.igem.org

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You are provided with this team page template with which to start the iGEM season.  You may choose to personalize it to fit your team but keep the same "look." Or you may choose to take your team wiki to a different level and design your own wiki.  You can find some examples <a href="https://2008.igem.org/Help:Template/Examples">HERE</a>.
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You <strong>MUST</strong> have a team description page, a project abstract, a complete project description, a lab notebook, and a safety page.  PLEASE keep all of your pages within your teams namespace. 
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech|<span style="color:orange;">Home</span>]]
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{|align="justify"
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Team|<span style="color:orange;">Team</span>]]
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|You can write a background of your team here. Give us a background of your team, the members, etc.  Or tell us more about something of your choosing.
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!align="center"|[https://igem.org/Team.cgi?year=2011&team_name=Virginia_Tech <span style="color:orange;">Official Team Profile</span>]
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|[[Image:Virginia_Tech_logo.png|200px|right|frame]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Project|<span style="color:orange;">Project</span>]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Parts|<span style="color:orange;">Parts Submitted to the Registry</span>]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Notebook|<span style="color:orange;">Notebook</span>]]
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''Tell us more about your project.  Give us background.  Use this is the abstract of your project.  Be descriptive but concise (1-2 paragraphs)''
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Safety|<span style="color:orange;">Safety</span>]]
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|[[Image:Virginia_Tech_team.png|right|frame|Your team picture]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Attributions|<span style="color:orange;">Attributions</span>]]
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|align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech | Team Example]]
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== '''Who We Are''' ==
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech|Home]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Team|Team]]
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!align="center"|[https://igem.org/Team.cgi?year=2010&team_name=Virginia_Tech Official Team Profile]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Project|Project]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Parts|Parts Submitted to the Registry]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Modeling|Modeling]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Notebook|Notebook]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Safety|Safety]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Virginia_Tech/Attributions|Attributions]]
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=== The Team ===
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{|
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|[[File:Mark_Stewart.png|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Mark Stewart</b></big> is a computer science and biochemistry student at the University of Maryland. He is interested in software development, particularly with respect to application tools for the research sciences and social media. His other interests include data visualization, scientific futurism, skeptical inquiry, and kittens. D'aw, kittens. He will graduate in 2012 and be pursuing a career in software development.
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|[[File:space.jpg|30px]]
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|[[File:Mandy_Hagen_1.JPG|left|160x160px| ]]|| <big><b>Mandy Hagen</b></big> is a rising junior at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is studying bioengineering with a concentration in drug discovery and delivery. During the school year she works in the Neuromuscular Bioengineering Lab as a researcher and at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center as a bartender. She is the Recruitment Chair for the Society of Bioengineers and an active member of Alpha Omega Epsilon, the engineering sorority. She participates as a Engineering School Ambassador and as a Honors College Ambassador in her spare time, of which she admittedly has very little. When not studying or engaged in academic activities, she plays club field hockey and enjoys napping. Following graduation she will either attend graduate school for biomedical engineering, pursue a career in professional engineering, or earn an MBA and go into industry. She'll be sure to let you know once she figures it out. Cheers. 
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|[[File:space.jpg|30px]]
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|[[File:Adam_Grose_1.jpg|left|160x160px|]]|| <big><b>Adam Grose</b></big> is a student at Bluefield State College in Bluefield, WV and is a Biology major. His aspiration is to attend graduate school in the medical field, possibly studying medicine.  His academic interests include microbiology and physiology; he is an automotive enthusiast, enjoys spending time with his family, and likes taking his dog, Cody, for a swim.  This is his first research experience, and he has found it to be very rewarding to bridge academia with practicum.  He is thankful to be a part of of the iGEM team at Virginia Tech. 
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|[[File:space.jpg|30px]]
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|[[File:Swetha_Pasala_1.JPG|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Swetha Pasala</b></big> is a Biology and Premedical studies student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is interested in biomedical research, particularly in the fields of pharmacology and signal transduction pathways. She is also interested in international affairs and diplomacy. She will graduate in 2014 and will, hopefully, be attending medical school thereafter.
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|[[File:space.jpg|30px]]
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|[[File:Brittany_Hartwell.jpg|left|120x160px|]]||<big><b>Brittany Nicole Harwell</b></big>
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like: Brittany Murphy and Brittany Snow   
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NOT like: Britney Spears <br />
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Meaning(s):  (1) a region in France. (2) derived from 'Britannia' a 2nd century Roman goddess. Appears on British coinage (source: wikipedia.org)
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interests/hobbies: knitting, baking, playing Angry Birds, hiking, hot air ballooning, storm chasing, long walks on the beach, levitating.
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== '''Who we are''' ==
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I also enjoy playing field hockey and ping pong. I played field hockey for about 10 years up until college. I still play ping pong, but now everyone always steals my ping pong balls.
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|[[File:Judith_Eeckman_1.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Judith Eeckman</b></big> is a french engineering student at the Grenoble Institute of Technology, Ensimag, where she studies maths and computer science. The main subjects of her academic curriculum are statistics and numerical optimization. She is interested in computer simulation of physical systems. Next year, she will go to the University of Lausanne ( Switzerland ), to enhance her knowledge in this area.
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|[[File:space.jpg|30px]]
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|[[File:Meghan_Savage_1.jpg|left|120x200px|]]|| <big><b>Meghan Savage</b></big> is a rising junior at Virginia Tech. She is working towards her degree in Biology with a possible Microbiology and Immunology concentration.  Following her graduation in 2013, Meghan is considering pursuing a career in medicine and plans on attending medical school .  Her other interests include nutrition, biomedical research, and physical therapy.  Apart from her academic endeavors, Meghan enjoys running and camping.
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|[[File:Hayley_Schaefer_1.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Hayley Schaefer</b></big> is a biotechnology and pre-pharmacy student at James Madison University. She's interested in biomedical research, drug development, and genetic engineering. She currently is doing dengue virus surface protein undergraduate research at JMU. She as an interest in Japanese language and culture and has studied abroad at Keio University in Tokyo.  She will be graduating in 2012 and hopes to possibly continuing her education and maybe work in developing new biopharmaceuticals in the future.
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|[[File:space.jpg|30px]]
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|[[File:Loran_Steinberger.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Loran Steinberger</b></big> is currently studying to complete her B.S. in Honors in Biochemistry at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is interested in the health field applications of stem cell research, genetic engineering, and drug research. She also currently enjoys reading Nietzsche, playing Shadow of the Colossus, and feeding ducks in her spare time. She expects to graduate in 2013, and to continue her education roughly along the lines of how humans function at a molecular level.
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|[[File:Daniel_Thorpe_1.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Daniel Thorpe</b></big> is a rising senior studying biology and math at The College of William & Mary.  He is interested in synthetic biology, self-organizing systems, and any efforts to leverage the elegance and power of natural systems to improve human engineering and design.  His other interests include rock climbing, meditating, exploring the intersection of science and art, and reading ''The Onion''.  After he graduates in 2012, he plans to attend graduate school to study synthetic biology.
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'''Advisors:'''
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=== The Advisors ===
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<!-- Pictures and descriptions of Advisors/Team Leaders; it's just a table with two columns, one for a picture and one for a description, and one row for each person -->
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*''' Project Lead''': Jean Peccoud
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{|
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*'''Advisor 2''':     Our favorite
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|[[File:Laura_Adam.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Laura Adam</b></big> is a PhD student in Genetic, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at Virginia Tech. Previously, she earned a master degree in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics in the french engineering school ENSIMAG. At present, she works on GenoCAD; her research, supervised by Dr. Jean Peccoud, focuses on using computational linguistics to design synthetic constructs. She also advised the 2010 VT-ENSIMAG iGEM team who worked on GenoTHREAT, a biosecurity software.
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*'''Grad Student 1''':     Our leader 
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Website: http://web.me.com/laura.adam/Laura_Adam/Welcome.html
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Contact: ladam@vbi.vt.edu
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'''Undergrads:'''
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|[[File:Julie_Marchand.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Julie Marchand</b></big> received her Master degree in Cellular and Molecular biology from Laval University in Quebec city, Canada. Her dissertation consisted of studying how the various molecular structures of the small heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27) affect its cellular functions and localization. In 2008 she joined the Synthetic Biology Group at VBI where she focuses on designing and fabricating molecules as well as genetically modified microorganisms used for live cell imaging or the validation of in Silico simulations.
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'''The Design Team:'''
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|[[File:space.jpg|30px]]
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*'''Mark Stewart''', computer science major at the University of Maryland
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|[[File:David_Ball.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>David Ball</b></big> received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Tennessee Space Institute in 2006. His dissertation work focused on the development of hardware to improve the throughput of Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS) to be used for determination of binding efficiency in drug discovery assays. Through the course of his graduate work, Dr. Ball was involved in the design and construction of custom optical systems for the detection of single fluorescent molecules, as well as the characterization of photon detectors.
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*'''Daniel Thorpe''', biology major at College of William and Mary
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In 2007, David joined the Synthetic Biology group at VBI as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, and later became a Senior Research Associate under the supervision of Jean Peccoud. Here, he has developed image processing algorithms for analyzing time-lapse microscopy movies, in order to extract gene expression data on single cells in vivo using fluorescent protein fusions. This work has been used in collaboration with John Tyson to explore protein expression in the yeast cell cycle. Currently, Dr. Ball is improving this software to allow for real-time image processing, in order to adaptively control microscope acquisition.
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'''The Fabrication Team:'''
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|[[File:Martha_Eborall.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Dr. Martha Eborall</b></big> earned her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech. She is currently a Professor of Biology at Bluefield State College, teaching a diversity of classes including Microbiology. While participating in a RET at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, she worked with Virginia Tech’s 2007 iGEM team. Last year she served as a faculty advisor for the Virginia United iGEM team. She has returned this year to advise the 2011 Virginia Tech team. Her iGEM experiences have been very rewarding.
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*'''Miranda Hagen''', bioengineering major at the University of Maryland
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*'''Swetha Pasala'''
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|[[File:space.jpg|30px]]
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*'''Hayley Schaefer''', biotechnology major at James Madison University
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*'''Loran Steinberger''', biochemistry major at Virginia Tech
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|[[File:Jean_Peccoud.jpg|left|120x160px|]]|| <big><b>Dr. Jean Peccoud</b></big> is an expert in computational synthetic biology. His current scientific interests include the development of linguistic models of DNA sequences, the optimization of DNA fabrication processes, and the development of new instruments to measure the dynamics of gene networks in live cells. Dr Peccoud's group is leading the development of GenoCAD, an open source web-based application to design synthetic DNA molecules from libraries of standard genetic parts. In the 1990s, Dr Peccoud pioneered the development of stochastic models of genetic networks.
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Dr Peccoud joined the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech in 2006 as Associate Professor. Prior to joining VBI, he was responsible for a research program at Du Pont focused on gene and regulatory network discovery, the design of DNA transformation vectors, and the development of methods to analyze the genetic properties of gene networks. Dr Peccoud has been a visiting professor in the department of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, a visiting scholar with Wolfram Research, and the recipient of a NATO Fellowship. He serves as Academic Editor of PLoS ONE.
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'''The Characterization Team:'''
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*'''Judith Eckman'''
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*'''Adam Grose'''
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*'''Brittany Harwell'''
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*'''Meghan Savage''', biology major at Virginia Tech
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<gallery>
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Image:Virginia_Tech_Team_member_1.png|Team member 1
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Image:Virginia_Tech_Team_member_2.png|Team member 2
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Image:Virginia_Tech_Team_member_3.png|Team member 3
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Image:Virginia_Tech_Team_member_4.png|Team member 4
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Image:Virginia_Tech_Team_member_5.png|Team member 5
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Image:Virginia_Tech_Team_member_6.png|Team member 6
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Image:Virginia_Tech_Team_member_7.png|Team member 7
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</gallery>
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== '''What we did''' ==
 
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(Provide proper attribution for all work)
 
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== '''Where we're from''' ==
 

Latest revision as of 03:09, 29 September 2011

Division.png Virginia Tech logo.png Diatoms.png

Home Team Official Team Profile Project Parts Submitted to the Registry Notebook Safety Attributions


Who We Are

The Team


Mark Stewart.png
Mark Stewart is a computer science and biochemistry student at the University of Maryland. He is interested in software development, particularly with respect to application tools for the research sciences and social media. His other interests include data visualization, scientific futurism, skeptical inquiry, and kittens. D'aw, kittens. He will graduate in 2012 and be pursuing a career in software development.
Space.jpg
Mandy Hagen 1.JPG
Mandy Hagen is a rising junior at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is studying bioengineering with a concentration in drug discovery and delivery. During the school year she works in the Neuromuscular Bioengineering Lab as a researcher and at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center as a bartender. She is the Recruitment Chair for the Society of Bioengineers and an active member of Alpha Omega Epsilon, the engineering sorority. She participates as a Engineering School Ambassador and as a Honors College Ambassador in her spare time, of which she admittedly has very little. When not studying or engaged in academic activities, she plays club field hockey and enjoys napping. Following graduation she will either attend graduate school for biomedical engineering, pursue a career in professional engineering, or earn an MBA and go into industry. She'll be sure to let you know once she figures it out. Cheers.
Space.jpg
Adam Grose 1.jpg
Adam Grose is a student at Bluefield State College in Bluefield, WV and is a Biology major. His aspiration is to attend graduate school in the medical field, possibly studying medicine. His academic interests include microbiology and physiology; he is an automotive enthusiast, enjoys spending time with his family, and likes taking his dog, Cody, for a swim. This is his first research experience, and he has found it to be very rewarding to bridge academia with practicum. He is thankful to be a part of of the iGEM team at Virginia Tech.
Space.jpg
Swetha Pasala 1.JPG
Swetha Pasala is a Biology and Premedical studies student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is interested in biomedical research, particularly in the fields of pharmacology and signal transduction pathways. She is also interested in international affairs and diplomacy. She will graduate in 2014 and will, hopefully, be attending medical school thereafter.
Space.jpg
Brittany Hartwell.jpg
Brittany Nicole Harwell

like: Brittany Murphy and Brittany Snow NOT like: Britney Spears
Meaning(s): (1) a region in France. (2) derived from 'Britannia' a 2nd century Roman goddess. Appears on British coinage (source: wikipedia.org)

interests/hobbies: knitting, baking, playing Angry Birds, hiking, hot air ballooning, storm chasing, long walks on the beach, levitating.

I also enjoy playing field hockey and ping pong. I played field hockey for about 10 years up until college. I still play ping pong, but now everyone always steals my ping pong balls.

Space.jpg
Judith Eeckman 1.jpg
Judith Eeckman is a french engineering student at the Grenoble Institute of Technology, Ensimag, where she studies maths and computer science. The main subjects of her academic curriculum are statistics and numerical optimization. She is interested in computer simulation of physical systems. Next year, she will go to the University of Lausanne ( Switzerland ), to enhance her knowledge in this area.
Space.jpg
Meghan Savage 1.jpg
Meghan Savage is a rising junior at Virginia Tech. She is working towards her degree in Biology with a possible Microbiology and Immunology concentration. Following her graduation in 2013, Meghan is considering pursuing a career in medicine and plans on attending medical school . Her other interests include nutrition, biomedical research, and physical therapy. Apart from her academic endeavors, Meghan enjoys running and camping.
Space.jpg
Hayley Schaefer 1.jpg
Hayley Schaefer is a biotechnology and pre-pharmacy student at James Madison University. She's interested in biomedical research, drug development, and genetic engineering. She currently is doing dengue virus surface protein undergraduate research at JMU. She as an interest in Japanese language and culture and has studied abroad at Keio University in Tokyo. She will be graduating in 2012 and hopes to possibly continuing her education and maybe work in developing new biopharmaceuticals in the future.
Space.jpg
Loran Steinberger.jpg
Loran Steinberger is currently studying to complete her B.S. in Honors in Biochemistry at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is interested in the health field applications of stem cell research, genetic engineering, and drug research. She also currently enjoys reading Nietzsche, playing Shadow of the Colossus, and feeding ducks in her spare time. She expects to graduate in 2013, and to continue her education roughly along the lines of how humans function at a molecular level.
Space.jpg
Daniel Thorpe 1.jpg
Daniel Thorpe is a rising senior studying biology and math at The College of William & Mary. He is interested in synthetic biology, self-organizing systems, and any efforts to leverage the elegance and power of natural systems to improve human engineering and design. His other interests include rock climbing, meditating, exploring the intersection of science and art, and reading The Onion. After he graduates in 2012, he plans to attend graduate school to study synthetic biology.



The Advisors

Laura Adam.jpg
Laura Adam is a PhD student in Genetic, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at Virginia Tech. Previously, she earned a master degree in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics in the french engineering school ENSIMAG. At present, she works on GenoCAD; her research, supervised by Dr. Jean Peccoud, focuses on using computational linguistics to design synthetic constructs. She also advised the 2010 VT-ENSIMAG iGEM team who worked on GenoTHREAT, a biosecurity software.

Website: http://web.me.com/laura.adam/Laura_Adam/Welcome.html Contact: ladam@vbi.vt.edu

Space.jpg
Julie Marchand.jpg
Julie Marchand received her Master degree in Cellular and Molecular biology from Laval University in Quebec city, Canada. Her dissertation consisted of studying how the various molecular structures of the small heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27) affect its cellular functions and localization. In 2008 she joined the Synthetic Biology Group at VBI where she focuses on designing and fabricating molecules as well as genetically modified microorganisms used for live cell imaging or the validation of in Silico simulations.
Space.jpg
David Ball.jpg
David Ball received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Tennessee Space Institute in 2006. His dissertation work focused on the development of hardware to improve the throughput of Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS) to be used for determination of binding efficiency in drug discovery assays. Through the course of his graduate work, Dr. Ball was involved in the design and construction of custom optical systems for the detection of single fluorescent molecules, as well as the characterization of photon detectors.

In 2007, David joined the Synthetic Biology group at VBI as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, and later became a Senior Research Associate under the supervision of Jean Peccoud. Here, he has developed image processing algorithms for analyzing time-lapse microscopy movies, in order to extract gene expression data on single cells in vivo using fluorescent protein fusions. This work has been used in collaboration with John Tyson to explore protein expression in the yeast cell cycle. Currently, Dr. Ball is improving this software to allow for real-time image processing, in order to adaptively control microscope acquisition.

Space.jpg
Martha Eborall.jpg
Dr. Martha Eborall earned her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech. She is currently a Professor of Biology at Bluefield State College, teaching a diversity of classes including Microbiology. While participating in a RET at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, she worked with Virginia Tech’s 2007 iGEM team. Last year she served as a faculty advisor for the Virginia United iGEM team. She has returned this year to advise the 2011 Virginia Tech team. Her iGEM experiences have been very rewarding.
Space.jpg
Jean Peccoud.jpg
Dr. Jean Peccoud is an expert in computational synthetic biology. His current scientific interests include the development of linguistic models of DNA sequences, the optimization of DNA fabrication processes, and the development of new instruments to measure the dynamics of gene networks in live cells. Dr Peccoud's group is leading the development of GenoCAD, an open source web-based application to design synthetic DNA molecules from libraries of standard genetic parts. In the 1990s, Dr Peccoud pioneered the development of stochastic models of genetic networks.

Dr Peccoud joined the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech in 2006 as Associate Professor. Prior to joining VBI, he was responsible for a research program at Du Pont focused on gene and regulatory network discovery, the design of DNA transformation vectors, and the development of methods to analyze the genetic properties of gene networks. Dr Peccoud has been a visiting professor in the department of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, a visiting scholar with Wolfram Research, and the recipient of a NATO Fellowship. He serves as Academic Editor of PLoS ONE.