Team:Macquarie Australia/Team

From 2011.igem.org

Instructors

Louise Brown "Go to the bar, now! Get out of the labs"

Lousie Brown, a perennial fixture in the laboratory, oversaw all groundwork. Her role as instructor and communicator ensured the smooth progress of the project. Her other role was to keep us all motivated and she was vital to the success of the team.

Robert "Boss" Willows

Rob Willows can be thought of as the overmind to this project - his insight into the biology, his experience in the labs and general brilliance allowed the team to negotiate all the twists and turns of the labwork. We would turn to Rob whenever the project threw a 'what's next' at the team. Rob would help out with PCR, suggest plates to use, what digest should be performed, troubleshooted our PCR programs, helped with colony screenings, interpretation of gels and solving problems alongside Louise Brown. He kept the project on track.

Joanna "Jo it all" Hare

Jo, now an Honours student at MQ, brought last year's experience with her and provided help with what a wiki should look like, how a lab should function, and other keys to success.

Nicki Packer: "Money"

Nicki Packer worked on the team's finances, ensuring we were supplied with enough filter pipette tips, PCR cleanup kits, gel prep materials and allowing this unit to exist in the first place!

Students

Alxcia Sinclair - "Legs"

Alxcia Sinclair is in her final year of BBiotech and loving every second of it. She enjoys a good dance with her friends on the weekend, a beefy game of basketball and an epic bowl of nachos when she thinks she deserves it. She has become a bit more of a tech head working on the wiki and has contributed lab time to PCR preparations, gel organization and plate developments. Her obsessions are currently fixed towards protein analysis with posttranslational modifications being the main focus.

David Dubow - "Blue Dave"

David Dubow is a 3rd year Bachelour of science student double majoring in chemistry and biomolecular sciences. He helped out with the technical work in the lab, such as operating the gel visualiser, nano-drop, creating inital concentrates for dilution, and working alongside Edward during the last two hectic weeks of prac work. He is looking forward to venturing into the field of astrobiology and discovering new and odd forms of life."I'm not good with living things!"

Tania Tan. - "Stripes"

Tania Tan is a 3rd year Bachelor of Science student majoring in Biomolecular Sciences and Chemistry. Involved in lab work with media prep, gel prep and 4 hours straight of plasmid purifications...! Apart from the realm of chemistry, she has turned into a work-a-holic lab tech, a gym-a-holic and studies music DJ-ing!!!

Peter Young - "Chris"

Peter Young is a 4th year bachelor of science student, majoring biomolecular science and commencing a masters in policing and counter-terrorism. He enjoys spear fishing, rock climbing, mixed martial arts and hopefully soon gene doping (lol!)

Arjun Bhat - "AJ"

Aj's is the team's wiki guru - working alongside Alxcia they created the backbone of the wiki theme. Aj's work also extended into general lab duty.

David Handler - "Red Dave"

David is in his third year of a Bachelor of Advanced Science with majors in Biology, Biomolecular sciences and English. His jobs for the team involve catch-all general lab work (nanodrop, gel work, PCR, plates) and help with wiki upkeep, design and photography. His future aspirations involve work with prions and science communication. David loves writing, making music and taking photographs in his spare time.

Mihei Hwang. - "Meticulous Mihei"

Mi Hei Hwang is a 3rd year Bachelor of Science student majoring in Biomolecular Sciences and Chemistry. Involved in lab work with media prep, gel prep, and some of PCR work. She enjoys woking in the Lab as part of iGEM team. She love learning new things which is why she like studying science. She is planing to travel around whole world in near future.

Edward Moh - "The Brain"

Edward Moh is a 3rd year student that's well-trained in molecular biology. Not biology, not chemistry, but Molecular Biology. He is also the lab slave for the team - planning, co-ordinating, trouble-shooting, conducting and the lot, and has become a long term resident of the lab. "It is never a right day in the lab, if nothing's gone wrong!"

Andrew McLeish - "Hydrator"

Andrew McLeish is a 3rd year Biotechnology student with a huge interest in stem cell research. He helped out in various jobs in the labs such as making up antibiotic resistant plates, PCR reactions and updating the wiki page. His other interests include going to the gym, owning noobs at various computer games and partying till the sun beats the moon.

Nina Neghabian - "Smiles"

Nina Neghabian is in the last semester of Science, majoring in Biomolecular science. Between all units, She enjoys most those related to biochemistry and drug discovery, that’s why she plans to continue medical biotechnology. She has helped out in the lab doing gel prep, competent cell preparation and nano-drop. Nina enjoys reading about astronomy, music and watching movies in her spare time.

Mahdieh Balabandi - "Switch-a-roo"

Mahdieh Balabandi is a 3rd year student studying a bachelor of Science/Law majoring in Biomolecular Sciences. Her role in the project has been predominately a lot of lab work.... Digestions and ligations are now her specialty! She hopes to explore more of all things synthetic biology in the near future.

Stephanie Rayner - "The PCRenator"

Stephanie Rayner is a 3rd year student completing a Bachelor of science. Her majors are Chemistry and Biomolecular Science. For the iGEM project she has been involved mostly in media preparation, plasmid purification and gel preparation. Outside of uni she enjoys drawing, painting and a good gym session.

Ross Garnsey - "90 degrees"

Ross Garnsey is a 3rd year science student that is majoring in biomolecular science. he has worked in the lab doing media prep, gel prep, and PCR. He is a big fan of sleeping, sitting and other non-energetic related activities. other interests include football, afl, ice hockey, lord of the rings and playing the guitar

Andrew Lin - "Superman-man"

Andrew Lin's role in the lab constituted plate media prep, gel prep and other tasks.

Zeinab Wehbi - "From the deep, dark North"

Zeinab Wehbi is a 3rd year BSc student majoring in Biomolecular Sciences. With a great interest in Bacterial cells and gene modification she enjoys being part of the Macquarie iGEM team and finds it an amazing learning experience. As a team member her Lab tasks involve PCRs -many and many PCRs :), transformations, gel loading and PCR cleanups. She loves music (can't survive a day without it!), dancing, basketball and beach volley ball -when its nice and sunny :)

About Macquarie University

Macquarie University, a welcoming community which is comprised of 31,000 students, with 8,800 international students from over 114 countries.

Macquarie University is ranked as one of Australia’s top nine universities and one of the top 40 universities in the Asia-Pacific region. We are recognised for having an innovative curriculum, high-quality teaching and research, and unique campus environment.

Students that are involved in this community are all encouraged to develop qualities, skills and knowledge essential to their future success.

Macquarie’s goal is to reach the top eight research-intensive universities in Australia and among the top 200 in the world by its 50th anniversary in 2014.

Macquarie has recently established the Australian School of Advanced Medicine, advanced into high-technology engineering, and identified concentrations of research excellence (COREs), meaning the Macquarie concentrates on distinct research areas of the highest quality.

Macquarie also has doctoral research partnerships with 53 universities from 22 countries.