"
Team:GeorgiaTech/Team
From 2011.igem.org
| Advisors | |
Dr. Eric Gaucher | Dr. Eric Gaucher exploits a multidisciplinary approach towards research to generate an 'evolutionary synthetic biology'. This combination of molecular evolution and biomedicine provides a better understanding of basic molecular processes while simultaneously generating biomolecules useful for industrial and therapeutic purposes. Dr. Gaucher received his Ph.D. in 2001 and then worked for NASA until 2003 studying the Origins and Evolution of Early Life. He was then Researcher/President of a non-profit research organization until 2008 at which time he accepted an Associate Professor position at the Georgia Institute of Technology. |
| Dr. Brian Hammer is a molecular microbiologist interested a process of chemical communication called Quorum Sensing, which bacteria use to orchestrate group behavior. He received his MS in aquatic ecology from the University of Michigan in 1995 and his PhD in Microbiology from the University of Michigan Medical School in 2001. He was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at Princeton University from 2001-2008. Dr. Hammer joined Georgia Tech in 2008 where he is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Biology. Dr. Hammer is funded by two programs at the NSF: the Division of the Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB); and the Network Science and Engineering (NetSE) program. Many of his lab members study the aquatic pathogen Vibrio cholerae, with a focus on the molecular mechanisms that permit this bacterium to convert extracellular chemical signals into changes in the expression of genes important in marine systems and the human host. In addition, other members of the Hammer lab are developing synthetic quorum sensing systems to model, simulate, and experimentally validate the fundamental limits and protocols for molecular communication. This work is in collaboration with several professors in the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. |
| Dr. Harold Kim is an experimental biophysicist who studies the biophysics of the genome and its influence on gene expression patterns. His research group uses single-molecule and single-cell fluorescence microscopy to understand (1)how intrinsic DNA looping dynamics is related to nucleosome formation; (2) how nucleosome positioning influences gene regulation; and (3) how spatial distribution and copy number of genes influences their expression patterns. Dr. Harold Kim received his PhD in applied physics from Stanford University in 2004, did his postdoctoral research at Harvard University from 2005 to 2009, and joined the School of Physics in 2010 as an assistant professor. He is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award at the Scientific Interface. |
| Dr. Mark Styczynski uses experimental and computational techniques to study the connections between the different layers of regulation in cells and the cells' ultimate phenotypic outcomes. Of most interest to his lab are metabolites, the small molecule building blocks necessary for all cellular functions both as source materials and as cues that prompt regulation and other cellular responses. He studies metabolism in a variety of systems ranging from yeast to human cancer cell lines. Dr. Styczynski received his PhD from MIT in 2007, was a postdoctoral associate at the Broad Institute from 2007 to 2009, and joined the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech in 2009 as an Assistant Professor. |
| Dr. Joshua Weitz is a quantitative biologist interested in the structure and dynamics of complex biological systems. He received his PhD in Physics from MIT in 2003 and was a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University from 2003-2006. Dr. Weitz joined Georgia Tech in 2007 where he is currently an Assistant Professor of Biology with courtesy appointments in Physics and Bioengineering. Dr. Weitz is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award at the Scientific Interface and is funded by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, NSF, and DARPA. His research group includes ecologists, mathematicians, physicists and bioinformaticians working on four major research themes: (i) viral dynamics at the molecular, population and evolutionary scales; (ii) quantitative systems biology and bioinformatics; (iii) structure and function of vascular networks; (iv) theoretical ecology and epidemiology. The work in the Weitz group is primarily theoretical in nature, and utilizes the tools of nonlinear dynamics, stochastic processes, and large-scale data analysis to interact with experimentalists. Examples of recent and ongoing projects include studies of collective decision making in bacterial viruses, robustness and fragility of gene regulatory networks to copy number variation, unsupervised approaches to binning short environmental sequence fragments, network phenotyping and classification of root system architecture, and a Hierarchical Bayesian analysis of allometric scaling models in biology. |
|
"Ryan manages Prof. Gaucher's laboratory and performs original research as a 2nd year graduate student within the School of Biology at GaTech. She is currently evolving monomeric red fluorescent proteins in the laboratory. Her data will be used to construct an experimental phylogeny that will in turn be used to benchmark computational methods of ancestral sequence reconstruction. She received her BS from the University of Georgia in 2008 with a degree in Cellular Biology. She is the graduate advisor of the Georgia Tech iGEM 2011 team and has been a constant source of support for the team. She has proven invaluable to GTiGEM 2011 team and has provided us with all the lab supplies and protocols."
-Mitesh Agrawal |
| Students | |
|
""Mitesh is a 3rd year international student from India majoring in Biomedical Engineering. Besides being all around awesome, he was a member of Georgia Tech’s first iGEM team where he was a major contributor to the modeling section of the project. This year he has once again been a vital part of the team, helping with experimental design and giving us perspective on how things worked last year. His research endeavors have included study of embryonic stem cells and genetic engineering. Mitesh was a crew member (radio specialist and biologist) for the Georgia Tech Mars Desert Research Station and he is also actively involved in the Georgia Alpha chapter of Tau Beta Pi - an engineering honors society. When not in the lab, Mitesh enjoys playing a rousing game of racquetball and reading science fiction novels. Oh, and he is a die-hard Manchester United fan, so watch out Liverpool. >:)”
-Hannah Keith |
|
"Calvin is a 4th year chemical engineer specializing in bioprocess engineering. He is very interested in using ethanol as a fuel, and looking into the process of the utilizating of recalcitrant biomass to create renewable bioenergy. He would like to improve the current process of producing cellulose based biofuels by cloning essential enzymes from cellulolytic bacteria. He hopes to engineer E. coli with these genes to simultaneously hydrolyze cellulose and ferment those products of hydrolysis. Calvin is also working on the modeling component of our project."
-Paul Sebexen |
|
"Kettner Griswold is a straight up mad scientist. He is a 2nd year MSE Student who hails from Bethesda, MD where he was a local legend- seriously, google him. Kettner worked at the J. Craig Venter Institue for a year during high school and now spends his days reading scientific literature and white water kayaking (usually not at the same time)."
-Hannah Keith |
|
"Hannah is a second year biochemistry major and is a vital member of the GTiGEM 2011 team. Besides being an important contributor in experimental design of this year’s project, she is the one who has kept our team organized and well run. Her field of interest is studying structural and functional properties of different biochemical molecules, including a special fondness for H2O. Hannah loves running and is an avid reader of non-fictional books. When not busy with studies and iGEM, she devotes her time to various community services and organizations like the American Medical Student Association. Overall, she has been an amazing addition to the Georgia Tech iGEM team."
-Mitesh Agrawal |
|
"Priya is a 4th year Computational Media major. She is interested in how modern media channels can help illustrate complex processes in Synthetic Biology. She likes intuitive user interfaces, Afrojack, and Cuban food."
-Paul Sebexen |
|
"Paul Sebexen is a 3rd-year Computer Science major. He is originally from New York City and has research interests ranging from computational biology to solid-state physics. In his free time, Paul enjoys studying languages, bicycling, tennis, and playing piano. Paul loves everything German."
-Priya Kurani |
