Team:Bielefeld-CeBiTec/Attributions
Attributions
Summary
During our time at iGEM all the experiments have been constructed and performed by our Team members. To show some appreaciation for every single one of our team members we will give you a little inside into the contributions of each of us to our project.
Furthermore, we were lucky to be supported by many great people, whether it was through thoughtful advice, introductions to novel laboratory tecniques, an expert assessment of out project or laboratory equipment, on this page we would like to take a moment to thank every one who supported or contributed to our project in any way shape or form. From the bottom of our hearts thank you!
During our time at iGEM all the experiments have been constructed and performed by our Team members. To show some appreaciation for every single one of our team members we will give you a little inside into the contributions of each of us to our project.
Furthermore, we were lucky to be supported by many great people, whether it was through thoughtful advice, introductions to novel laboratory tecniques, an expert assessment of out project or laboratory equipment, on this page we would like to take a moment to thank every one who supported or contributed to our project in any way shape or form. From the bottom of our hearts thank you!
Team members
Adila Apsara
Troygenics Assembly
- Design and cloning of the helperphage- and Troygenic DNA-plasmid
- Fungicide Simulation
- Growth experiments to determine gain of resistance to fungicides
- Fungicide treatment of infected wheat seedlings
Nefeli Chanoutsi
Troygenic Assembly
- Design and cloning of the helperphage- and Troygenic DNA-plasmid
- Characterisation of the Troygenics
- Design and cloning of split antibiotic resistances
- Chloramphenicol, hygromycin and kanamycin
- Characterisation of split resistances
- Contact with various companies
- Crowdfunding campain
- Experiments at the Sommerfest from the University Bielefeld
- Organisation of the podcast with M. Benecke, N. Oldemeier and N. Wagener
- Opening presentation at the Goethe-Museum in Duesseldorf
- dd PCR
- Nanopore sequencing
- Phage plaque assay
Isabel Conze
CeDIS- Background research
- Design and cloning of CeDIS-plasmids
- Yeast growth experiments
- Design and testing of the pSB1C3-Promotor-mCherry-His
- Design of the mCherry Collaboration script
- Coordination of the collaboration with other iGEM teams
- Design and execution of the modeling for the sgRNA-resistance gain
- Design and execution of the modeling of the optimal position for split-antibiotic resistances
- Design of the exhibition concept for the Goethe-Museum in Duesseldorf and Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld
- Design and construction of the posters
- Organisation of the collaboration with the iGEM-Team Duesseldorf
- Opening presentation at the Goethe-Museum in Duesseldorf
- Research on the legal situation in Germany, the EU and all around the world
- Collaboration with the iGEM-team UFRGS Brazil (Gyfloat)
Niklas Fante
Hardware
- Design of microfluidic systems for cultivation
- Cultivation of A. niger and S. cerevisiae in microfluidic chips
- Manufacturing of wafer for microfluidic chips via 3D printing
- Assessment of wafer quality
- Manufacturing of microfluidic chips
- Design, manufacturing and assembly of microfluidic starter kit
- Design and 3D printing of diverse lab supplies
- Design and construction of models for exhibitions
- Programming of the syringe pump configurator for personalization
- Research on laws and regulations concerning lab safety and biosafety
- Editing and submitting of the safety form
- General sponsoring overview and coordination
- Contact with various companies
- Sponsoring negotiations
- Product sponsoring for Hardware projects
- Sponsoring portfolio
- Background research
- Microfluidics
- Plasma Generator
- DLP and FFF/FDM 3D Printer
- Stylus Prfilometer
- Nanopore Sequencing
- TEM
Johanna Opgenoorth
Endocytosis- Background research
- Design and cloning of expression plasmids for fusion-proteins
- Protein-expression and protein-characterisation
- Endocytosis-Assay yeast and Aspergillus
- Fluorescence microscopy yeast
- Background research
- Design and cloning of CeDIS-plasmids
- Yeast growth experiments
- Design and cloning of expression plasmids
- Protein expression and in vitro analysis of Cas13a
- Design and cloning of expression plasmids
- Protein expression and comparison of different lysis and purification protocols
- Protein characterization
- Design of the exhibition concept for the Goethe-Museum in Duesseldorf and Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld
- Design and construction of the posters
- Organisation of the collaboration with the iGEM-Team Duesseldorf
- MALDI-ToF MS
Ina Schmitt
CeDIS- Background research
- Design and cloning of CeDIS-plasmids
- Growth experiments of yeast containing the CeDIS
- Analysis of GALL and SNR52 promotors in yeast
- Design and cloning of expression-plasmids
- Protein expression and in vitro analysis of Cas13a
- Cultivation of wheat seedlings
- Design and concept development of the wiki design
- Design and implementation of the wiki menu
- Wiki title page animation
- Design of the exhibition concept for the Goethe-Museum in Duesseldorf and Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld
- Design and construction of the posters
- Organisation of the collaboration with the iGEM-Team Duesseldorf
- Nanopore Sequencing
Alexander Schulze
Human Practices
- Developement of human practice concept
- Contacting Experts
- Coordinating and organising expert discussions
- Organisation of meetings with experts and stakeholders
- Organisation of the forward farm visit
- Formulation of sponsoring contracts
- Sponsoring negotiations
- Contact for sponsors regarding all concerns
- Contacting various companies
- General lab support with cloning of expression plasmids for fusion-proteins
- General lab support
- Design and cloning of TRP gene into pSB3C1 for establishing as yeast transformation vector
- Cultivation of weed seedlings for fungicide tests
Astrid Többer
Troygenic Assembly- Design and cloning of the Application and Assembly Plasmid
- Troygenic purification
- Troygenic DNA purification
- Troygenic fluorescence test
- Cloning of expression plasmids
- Cultivation of A. niger in microfluidic chips Improved part
- Background research
- Sponsoring portfolio
- Crowdfunding video
- Nanopore Sequencing
- ddPCR
- MALDI
- TEM
Katharina Wolff
CeDIS- Background research
- Design and cloning of CeDIS-plasmids
- Design of the Cas13a guide RNAs
- Growth experiments of yeast containing the CeDIS
- Cultivation of wheat seedlings
- Design and concept development of the wiki design
- Design and implementation of progress bar
- Troygenics Logo
- Design of the exhibition concept for the Goethe-Museum in Duesseldorf and Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld
- Design and construction of the posters
- Organisation of the collaboration with the iGEM-Team Duesseldorf
- Nanopore Sequencing
Advisors
Prof. Dr. Jörn Kalinowski (1st PI)
gave us the opportunity to participate in iGEM by providing us with our own laboratory and the resources of his working group.Dr. Christian Rückert (2nd PI)
participated in our weekly team meetings and helped us with advice and assistance. Furthermore, he gave us an instruction into the workings of nanopore sequencing.Dr. Boas Pucker, Svenja Vinke, Pascal Schmidt and Carsten Hain (advisor)
Special thanks to our advisors for supporting and encouraging us to realize all our ideas.General support
The group Microbial Genomics and Biotechnology
for allowing us to use their laboratories and equipment and showed great patience when we occupied many of the facilities. We want to thank especially Lars Wollenschlaeger, Erik Thieme and Lena Schaffert.
Prisca Viehöver and the Sequencing Core Facility
Thank you for making sure all our parts were sequenced correctly and quickly, especially in the stressful times right before the wiki freeze.
Marga Ferrari und Stefan Weidner
They helped us in many ways with issues regarding administration, sponsoring, organisation of events, finances and mail traffic.
Nils Luebke and Julian Droste
Thank you for your continuos advice and support in all things regarding the iGEM competition.
Prof. Kristian Mueller
We want to thank you for your helpful insights and interessting discussions about our topic and your advice on many project ideas we had during our iGEM time. Furthermore, thank you for allowing us to use your 3D-printer for parts of our hardware
Bianca Felsch
Supported us regarding the exchange of the sponsoring contracts, contact with the financial department, accounting and general advice on legal issues for sponsoring and the representation of sponsors.
Laura Schlüter
Continuously advised us about financial issues, Sponsorship and the legal situation.
Marcus Persicke
Supported our project through managing the supply of lab supplies and helped us understand the SAP system.
Melanie Kuhlmann
thank you for excelent technical support
Tobias Busche
for the help with the organisation of various events during our time and the invitation to join them and get to know the working group Prof. Alexander Grünberger
Thank you for providing us with a place to work in a microfluidic lab, as well as enabling us to use your equipment.
Maximilian Edich
who taught us the basics of inkscape and HTML and provided us with some helpful python scripts.
for allowing us to use their laboratories and equipment and showed great patience when we occupied many of the facilities. We want to thank especially Lars Wollenschlaeger, Erik Thieme and Lena Schaffert.
Prisca Viehöver and the Sequencing Core Facility
Thank you for making sure all our parts were sequenced correctly and quickly, especially in the stressful times right before the wiki freeze.
Marga Ferrari und Stefan Weidner
They helped us in many ways with issues regarding administration, sponsoring, organisation of events, finances and mail traffic.
Nils Luebke and Julian Droste
Thank you for your continuos advice and support in all things regarding the iGEM competition.
Prof. Kristian Mueller
We want to thank you for your helpful insights and interessting discussions about our topic and your advice on many project ideas we had during our iGEM time. Furthermore, thank you for allowing us to use your 3D-printer for parts of our hardware
Bianca Felsch
Supported us regarding the exchange of the sponsoring contracts, contact with the financial department, accounting and general advice on legal issues for sponsoring and the representation of sponsors.
Laura Schlüter
Continuously advised us about financial issues, Sponsorship and the legal situation.
Marcus Persicke
Supported our project through managing the supply of lab supplies and helped us understand the SAP system.
Melanie Kuhlmann
thank you for excelent technical support
Tobias Busche
for the help with the organisation of various events during our time and the invitation to join them and get to know the working group Prof. Alexander Grünberger
Thank you for providing us with a place to work in a microfluidic lab, as well as enabling us to use your equipment.
Maximilian Edich
who taught us the basics of inkscape and HTML and provided us with some helpful python scripts.
Material, Constructional and Analytical Support
Many people helped us over the course of our project with the provision of lab supplies, usage of machnineries or the instructions for certain methods. We sincerely want to thank them for all the support!
Eberhard Wünsch - from the AG Fermentationstechnik supported our work with exceptional technical support. Lara Petersen (BCIII) - helpful advice for the cultivation and microscopy of yeast, as well as help with fluoresce microscopy in general.
Christian Bartz (BCI) – introduction into the theory and usage of the French Press for cell lysis
Prof. Fischer von Mollard (BCIII) – for providing us with different yeast strains and a yeast transformation vector.
Tobias Luttermann – for kindly providing us with a yeast strain and some further support
Carola Eck – MALDI-ToF instructions and supporting us in handling the machnineries
Andreas Schmitt - for his help with some wiki issues and the providing of tools for our hardware.
Andrea Bräutigam – We thank Andrea Bräutigam, located at the CeBiTec in Bielefeld for always being open-minded towards discussing our Modeling-ideas.
Barbara Hammer – We appreciate the discussions with Barbara Hammer, located at the CITEC in Bielefeld, about possible usage of a KI to detect certain patterns in sequencing experiments.
Petra Lutter – We thank Petra Lutter, located at the University in Bielefeld, for discussing possible modeling approaches with us.
AG Wendisch at University Bielefeld - for their general support and insights regarding our project.
Dr. Andreas Schlüter - for letting us use his laboratory when ours got too crowded.
Mark Arentshorst – Mark Arentshorst, located at the Sylviuslab in Leiden provided us with the Aspergillus niger strain AB4.1 (pyrG-) and the complematation transformation vector pMA334.
Aquila Biolabs – We thank Aquila Biolabs and especially Julius Netzer for providing us with a CGQ system that could automatically determine the backscatter of a culture while growing in the incubator. It helped us during recording growth curves for important parts of our project (See: CeDIS)
SalisLab - We thank the SalisLab for providing us and others with the MODELLER software for free.
Waldhotel Brands-Busch – The Waldhotel Brands-Busch provided a location for working on our Wiki on the days we could not use the CeBiTec. We thank the administrators for their kindness.
iGEM Munich – We thank the iGEM-team 2019 from Munich for kindly providing us with the Cas13a plasmids created by their predecessors.
Thomas Schäffer - provided us access to a 3D printer and the rquired materials
Prof. Hütten - generously allowed us to use his 3D-printer and equipment
Aike Weissmann -provided helpful insights into the 3D printing of microfluidic chips and microscopy
Marco Radukic -Helped with 3D printing on prof Müllers printer und supported us in the printing of various parts
Sarah Täuber and Julian Schmitz
Support and advice in microfluidic issues, instructions in devices that were necessary for microfluidic chip assembly
Eberhard Wünsch - from the AG Fermentationstechnik supported our work with exceptional technical support. Lara Petersen (BCIII) - helpful advice for the cultivation and microscopy of yeast, as well as help with fluoresce microscopy in general.
Christian Bartz (BCI) – introduction into the theory and usage of the French Press for cell lysis
Prof. Fischer von Mollard (BCIII) – for providing us with different yeast strains and a yeast transformation vector.
Tobias Luttermann – for kindly providing us with a yeast strain and some further support
Carola Eck – MALDI-ToF instructions and supporting us in handling the machnineries
Andreas Schmitt - for his help with some wiki issues and the providing of tools for our hardware.
Andrea Bräutigam – We thank Andrea Bräutigam, located at the CeBiTec in Bielefeld for always being open-minded towards discussing our Modeling-ideas.
Barbara Hammer – We appreciate the discussions with Barbara Hammer, located at the CITEC in Bielefeld, about possible usage of a KI to detect certain patterns in sequencing experiments.
Petra Lutter – We thank Petra Lutter, located at the University in Bielefeld, for discussing possible modeling approaches with us.
AG Wendisch at University Bielefeld - for their general support and insights regarding our project.
Dr. Andreas Schlüter - for letting us use his laboratory when ours got too crowded.
Mark Arentshorst – Mark Arentshorst, located at the Sylviuslab in Leiden provided us with the Aspergillus niger strain AB4.1 (pyrG-) and the complematation transformation vector pMA334.
Aquila Biolabs – We thank Aquila Biolabs and especially Julius Netzer for providing us with a CGQ system that could automatically determine the backscatter of a culture while growing in the incubator. It helped us during recording growth curves for important parts of our project (See: CeDIS)
SalisLab - We thank the SalisLab for providing us and others with the MODELLER software for free.
Waldhotel Brands-Busch – The Waldhotel Brands-Busch provided a location for working on our Wiki on the days we could not use the CeBiTec. We thank the administrators for their kindness.
iGEM Munich – We thank the iGEM-team 2019 from Munich for kindly providing us with the Cas13a plasmids created by their predecessors.
Thomas Schäffer - provided us access to a 3D printer and the rquired materials
Prof. Hütten - generously allowed us to use his 3D-printer and equipment
Aike Weissmann -provided helpful insights into the 3D printing of microfluidic chips and microscopy
Marco Radukic -Helped with 3D printing on prof Müllers printer und supported us in the printing of various parts
Sarah Täuber and Julian Schmitz
Support and advice in microfluidic issues, instructions in devices that were necessary for microfluidic chip assembly
Education and Engagement
During our project we did not only stay in lab but we also went out and had spirited discussions with a variety of different people about the topic of synthetich biology. We would like to thank the people that helped us realise our outreach approach and helped us reach as many people as possible.
Damian Mallepree – Damian Mallepree is part of the management at the Goethe-museum in Duesseldorf. We worked together with him to craft an exhibition on synthetic biology relevant for people interested in literature. The Goethe Museum kindly provided us with a room in which we could set up our exhibition and organized an amazing opening event.
Dr. Isolde Wrazidlo and Sabine Palm – Together with Dr. Isolde Wrazidlo & Sabine Palm we designed an exhibition on synthetic biology for the NaMu in Bielefeld and set it up in a room they kindly provided for us.
Hertz – Thomas Rademacher as part of the Hertz 87.9 team helped us reaching out to other students at our university and created three podcasts with us (see: Outreach). We thank him for the post processing of our recordings and the possibility to use the recording setup of Hertz 87.9.
FameLab – We thank the people from the British Council Germany and the organizers of the FameLab competition in Bielefeld for being accommodating hosts for such an amazing event. We thank Martin Spiess at British Council Germany for providing us with videos of the presentations given by our team member Alexander Schulze.
Damian Mallepree – Damian Mallepree is part of the management at the Goethe-museum in Duesseldorf. We worked together with him to craft an exhibition on synthetic biology relevant for people interested in literature. The Goethe Museum kindly provided us with a room in which we could set up our exhibition and organized an amazing opening event.
Dr. Isolde Wrazidlo and Sabine Palm – Together with Dr. Isolde Wrazidlo & Sabine Palm we designed an exhibition on synthetic biology for the NaMu in Bielefeld and set it up in a room they kindly provided for us.
Hertz – Thomas Rademacher as part of the Hertz 87.9 team helped us reaching out to other students at our university and created three podcasts with us (see: Outreach). We thank him for the post processing of our recordings and the possibility to use the recording setup of Hertz 87.9.
FameLab – We thank the people from the British Council Germany and the organizers of the FameLab competition in Bielefeld for being accommodating hosts for such an amazing event. We thank Martin Spiess at British Council Germany for providing us with videos of the presentations given by our team member Alexander Schulze.
Expert advice
We want to thank all experts who invested their time in sharing their knowledge with us, inspiring us in many different ways and pathed new ways in various chapters of our project. Without your advice, input and experience, our project would not be the same!
Prof. Dr. Russell Cox - affirmed our decision to use the Cas system instead of expressing toxic metabolites.
Prof. Dr. Mark Varrelmann - furthered our understanding of the impact pathogenic fungi have on agriculture and highlighted some aspects we have to focus on for our project to have an impact for this problem. He also forwarded us to several other experts in this field. Most important, he advised us to extend our proof of concept by the filamentous fungi Aspergillus niger to better resemble a filamentous crop fungus.
Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kogel - as an expert of Phytopathology he gave us further information about important fungal crop pathogens of economic importance. During a call he advised us on a range of pathogenic fungi and potential concepts of fighting them by implementing latest research into our project.
Dr. rer. nat., apl. Professor Ulrich Schaffrath - advised us on many aspects of our project. He helped us to overcome some early project ideas, that would have been too difficult to realise in the short time, advised us on focusing on our Cas System to assure specificity and helped us to decide which wheat strains would fit our proof of concept best and how to access them. He also sent us further information to support our research.
Prof. Dr. Matthias Hahn - gave us great insights into the metabolic workings of fungi and the interaction between plant and pathogen. We discussed and pondered different methods to induce endocytosis and received advice to verify said methods, for example how to implement reporter genes into our concept. He also forwarded us to further experts and supported our research with a range of papers.
Dr. Patrick Beuters - consulted us on commen modes of action in formulations of fungicides and advised us to adapt our system accordingly.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Peter Westhoff - During multiple talks with Prof. Westhoff, we had a chance to discuss biosafety concepts of our project and received evaluations on our work and further plans.
Prof. Dr. Lutz Schmitt - helped us to acknowledge the social perception of genetic engineering in a better way. Especially, the discrepancy between the contrary security measures and potential mistrust in applications for medicine and agriculture are important points we have to take into consideration for the presentation of our project to people from outside the field.
Susanne Günther - We talked to Susanne Günther multiple times and discussed our project. As a philosopher, editor and farmer her opinion has been especially interesting for us. She evaluated our project and strongly furthered our understanding of the relationship between the consumers, farmers and genetic engineering.
Prof. Dr. Teja Tscharntke - gave us his evaluation of potential negative impacts of fungicides on ecosystems. This gave us more information to better highlight some of the advantages of our Troygenics in comparison to commonly used pesticides.
Prof. Dr. Susanne Zeilinger-Migsich - evaluated our concept of inducing endocytosis in our targeted fungi and gave us some great advice, especially she suggested us to have a closer look on mating pheromones to induce a specific uptake of our Troygenic. Furthermore, she gave us some important additional experts to get into contact with.
Dr. Alexander Lichius - gave us closer insight into the family of Aspergillus
Fabio Gsaller PhD. - helped us to improve and adapt our concept for Aspergillus niger. His evaluations and suggestions improved our planning of the according experiments and his experience with transformations of fungi helped us to plan our project accordingly. Further, he forwarded us to more important experts and gave us information we integrated in our project.
Professor Peter Langridge - helped us to coordinate our contact to the Wheat Initiative and forwarded us to experts from all around the world. As the International Science Coordinator at the Wheat Initiative he could also give us great insights into current research projects and interest. Moreover, he pointed out, that we would have to consider that approaches like ours require sophisticated protocols to test the new system before they are allowed to use.
Annicka Roos - helped us to understand the process of decision which kind of wheat fits best under certain circumstances and helped us to decide which kind of wheat strain we would require for our proof-of-concept. She ultimately got us access to the strains for our project.
Prof. Dr. Gabi Krczal - notably furthered our point of view on genetic engineering from a political point of view and gave us new insights into the political processes on a European level. Moreover, she gave us great advice on how to optimize our project to be easily applicable as an alternative to common methods, gave us information about the process of approving a new reagent for agriculture and furthered us to politicians.
Prof. Richard Oliver - helped us to improve our project in various ways. He advised us on how to induce endocytosis reliably and how to design our CeDIS in a way to minimalize the chance of pathogens overcoming it by mutation, which also has become a major influence to our modelling part. Beyond that, he optimised our concept of effective appliance of our system and the verification of our system. Last but not least, he improved the purification process of the Troygenics from the E. coli cultivation broth to optimize their applicability.
Prof Fiona Doohan - evaluated our system and advised us on some biosafety aspects we should be aware of for our application. She also advised us on our research to build our modelling part upon. Besides that, she furthered our knowledge about the historical impact of fungi and named us additional pathogens to target.
Prof. Silvia Germán - evaluated the applicability of our system and helped us to further our understanding about the joint usage of fungicides and the breeding of resistant plants. Moreover, she advised us on optimising our proof of concept by using additional closely related fungi and suggested us to increase the number of gene targets of our CeDIS, which also inspired us to investigate the optimal number of gene targets through our modelling.
Prof. Dr. Reinhard Fischer - furthered our understanding of the genetic processes we required to manipulate for the induction of endocytosis in Aspergillus. Besides that, affirmed our proceeding for our proof of concept and supported our research to realize an uptake of our Troygenics by the targeted fungi.
Dr. Primrose J Boynton - gave us access to Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Prof. Robert Park - suggested us to use mating factor alpha to induce endocytosis in S. cerevisiae
Prof. George Diallinas - advised us on endocytotic mechanisms in Aspergillus niger and suggested to target the proline transporter PrnB.
Prof. Eduardo Antonio Espeso Fernández - furthered our knowledge on metabolic pathways in fungi.
Prof. Dr. Holger B. Deising - proposed us to visit his lab to test our Troygenics in a further possible target fungus.
Dr. Ruth Meissner - helped us to design our modeling.
Dr. Andreas Mehl - advised us on common fungicide usage.
Catherine Sirven - answered several questions regarding resistance development in plant pathogenic fungi.
Prof. Ian Nicholls - helped us to improve our model on fungi gaining resistances to our CeDIS.
Dr. Juergen Derpmann - gave us insigt into the modern agriculture.
Dr. Olaf Kniemeyer - helped us examining optimal endocytosis pathways in fungi.
Karl Eschenbacher - enabled a visit on a Bayer forward farm for our team.
Phillip Krainbring - furthered our understanding of farming and the impact of fungi and fungicides to it. Furthermore, he gave us a possibility to integrate the impressions of farmers into our project and to compare them with the ones from the society, politicians and scientists.
Theo Többer - incused our view on the relation between agriculture, fungi and fungicides. His point of view also has furthered on our understanding of the opinion farmers have about genetic engineering.
Jens Plassmeier - gave us closer insight into common methods in agriculture.
Dr. Gopaljee Jha - advised us on fungal metabolites.
Paul Zabel - gave us insight into agriculture under extreme conditions.
Michael Kleimann - We had a chance to personally visit Michael Kleimann on his farm to discuss our project and his opinion on the topic. He advised us on several optimisations on our system to make it more applicable for farmers and more competitive towards commonly used fungicides.
Dra. Francismar Corrêa Marcelino-Guimaraes
Wei Xiong - helped us to improve our model regarding split antibiotic resistances
Ravi Singh - gave us closer insight into phage purification processes.
Kristina Waldschmidt - extended our knowledge about crop pathogens by reports on their influence in sub-Saharan Africa. This also improved our understanding of the interaction between crop damaging fungi, the different ways of plant cultivation and styles of artificial irrigation. She also highlighted the focus on making our system resilient against higher doses of UV-rays to adapt it to such conditions.
Bernd Olligs - led us visit his farm and gave us closer insight into actual agriculture.
Felix Beck – Felix Beck contributed to our project by explaining the legal situation of GMOs in Germany and the EU to us. He is a Phd-student of law at the university in Freiburg, looking into just this in his Phd thesis.
Cecile van der Vlugt-Bergmans – We thank Cecile van der Vlugt-Bergmans for giving us insights into the legislation of GMOs in the EU and the Netherlands. She is located at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in the Netherlands.
Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Jany – We thank Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Jany of the “Wissenschaftlerkreis Grüne Gentechnik“ for supporting us in our intend to summarize the legal situation in the EU, Germany and other countries.
Prof. He Xionglei – Prof. He Xionglei from the State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University in China kindly provided us with information about the mutation frequencies and spectra of S. cerevisiae.
Guillaume Garin – Guillaume Garine gave us insights into modeling the disease dynamics of fungi on plants and advised us to rather use models that are more frequently used to predict the resistance gain of fungi. He is located at the iTK in Clapiers, France.
Meike Wittmann – We thank Junior Prof. Meike Wittmann for giving us insights into the general approach of modeling pathogens in their eco-system.
Christine Geffers – Christine Geffers, located at the Charité in Berlin gave us insights into the prevention of fungal infections in hospitals.
Prof. Dr. Russell Cox - affirmed our decision to use the Cas system instead of expressing toxic metabolites.
Prof. Dr. Mark Varrelmann - furthered our understanding of the impact pathogenic fungi have on agriculture and highlighted some aspects we have to focus on for our project to have an impact for this problem. He also forwarded us to several other experts in this field. Most important, he advised us to extend our proof of concept by the filamentous fungi Aspergillus niger to better resemble a filamentous crop fungus.
Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kogel - as an expert of Phytopathology he gave us further information about important fungal crop pathogens of economic importance. During a call he advised us on a range of pathogenic fungi and potential concepts of fighting them by implementing latest research into our project.
Dr. rer. nat., apl. Professor Ulrich Schaffrath - advised us on many aspects of our project. He helped us to overcome some early project ideas, that would have been too difficult to realise in the short time, advised us on focusing on our Cas System to assure specificity and helped us to decide which wheat strains would fit our proof of concept best and how to access them. He also sent us further information to support our research.
Prof. Dr. Matthias Hahn - gave us great insights into the metabolic workings of fungi and the interaction between plant and pathogen. We discussed and pondered different methods to induce endocytosis and received advice to verify said methods, for example how to implement reporter genes into our concept. He also forwarded us to further experts and supported our research with a range of papers.
Dr. Patrick Beuters - consulted us on commen modes of action in formulations of fungicides and advised us to adapt our system accordingly.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Peter Westhoff - During multiple talks with Prof. Westhoff, we had a chance to discuss biosafety concepts of our project and received evaluations on our work and further plans.
Prof. Dr. Lutz Schmitt - helped us to acknowledge the social perception of genetic engineering in a better way. Especially, the discrepancy between the contrary security measures and potential mistrust in applications for medicine and agriculture are important points we have to take into consideration for the presentation of our project to people from outside the field.
Susanne Günther - We talked to Susanne Günther multiple times and discussed our project. As a philosopher, editor and farmer her opinion has been especially interesting for us. She evaluated our project and strongly furthered our understanding of the relationship between the consumers, farmers and genetic engineering.
Prof. Dr. Teja Tscharntke - gave us his evaluation of potential negative impacts of fungicides on ecosystems. This gave us more information to better highlight some of the advantages of our Troygenics in comparison to commonly used pesticides.
Prof. Dr. Susanne Zeilinger-Migsich - evaluated our concept of inducing endocytosis in our targeted fungi and gave us some great advice, especially she suggested us to have a closer look on mating pheromones to induce a specific uptake of our Troygenic. Furthermore, she gave us some important additional experts to get into contact with.
Dr. Alexander Lichius - gave us closer insight into the family of Aspergillus
Fabio Gsaller PhD. - helped us to improve and adapt our concept for Aspergillus niger. His evaluations and suggestions improved our planning of the according experiments and his experience with transformations of fungi helped us to plan our project accordingly. Further, he forwarded us to more important experts and gave us information we integrated in our project.
Professor Peter Langridge - helped us to coordinate our contact to the Wheat Initiative and forwarded us to experts from all around the world. As the International Science Coordinator at the Wheat Initiative he could also give us great insights into current research projects and interest. Moreover, he pointed out, that we would have to consider that approaches like ours require sophisticated protocols to test the new system before they are allowed to use.
Annicka Roos - helped us to understand the process of decision which kind of wheat fits best under certain circumstances and helped us to decide which kind of wheat strain we would require for our proof-of-concept. She ultimately got us access to the strains for our project.
Prof. Dr. Gabi Krczal - notably furthered our point of view on genetic engineering from a political point of view and gave us new insights into the political processes on a European level. Moreover, she gave us great advice on how to optimize our project to be easily applicable as an alternative to common methods, gave us information about the process of approving a new reagent for agriculture and furthered us to politicians.
Prof. Richard Oliver - helped us to improve our project in various ways. He advised us on how to induce endocytosis reliably and how to design our CeDIS in a way to minimalize the chance of pathogens overcoming it by mutation, which also has become a major influence to our modelling part. Beyond that, he optimised our concept of effective appliance of our system and the verification of our system. Last but not least, he improved the purification process of the Troygenics from the E. coli cultivation broth to optimize their applicability.
Prof Fiona Doohan - evaluated our system and advised us on some biosafety aspects we should be aware of for our application. She also advised us on our research to build our modelling part upon. Besides that, she furthered our knowledge about the historical impact of fungi and named us additional pathogens to target.
Prof. Silvia Germán - evaluated the applicability of our system and helped us to further our understanding about the joint usage of fungicides and the breeding of resistant plants. Moreover, she advised us on optimising our proof of concept by using additional closely related fungi and suggested us to increase the number of gene targets of our CeDIS, which also inspired us to investigate the optimal number of gene targets through our modelling.
Prof. Dr. Reinhard Fischer - furthered our understanding of the genetic processes we required to manipulate for the induction of endocytosis in Aspergillus. Besides that, affirmed our proceeding for our proof of concept and supported our research to realize an uptake of our Troygenics by the targeted fungi.
Dr. Primrose J Boynton - gave us access to Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Prof. Robert Park - suggested us to use mating factor alpha to induce endocytosis in S. cerevisiae
Prof. George Diallinas - advised us on endocytotic mechanisms in Aspergillus niger and suggested to target the proline transporter PrnB.
Prof. Eduardo Antonio Espeso Fernández - furthered our knowledge on metabolic pathways in fungi.
Prof. Dr. Holger B. Deising - proposed us to visit his lab to test our Troygenics in a further possible target fungus.
Dr. Ruth Meissner - helped us to design our modeling.
Dr. Andreas Mehl - advised us on common fungicide usage.
Catherine Sirven - answered several questions regarding resistance development in plant pathogenic fungi.
Prof. Ian Nicholls - helped us to improve our model on fungi gaining resistances to our CeDIS.
Dr. Juergen Derpmann - gave us insigt into the modern agriculture.
Dr. Olaf Kniemeyer - helped us examining optimal endocytosis pathways in fungi.
Karl Eschenbacher - enabled a visit on a Bayer forward farm for our team.
Phillip Krainbring - furthered our understanding of farming and the impact of fungi and fungicides to it. Furthermore, he gave us a possibility to integrate the impressions of farmers into our project and to compare them with the ones from the society, politicians and scientists.
Theo Többer - incused our view on the relation between agriculture, fungi and fungicides. His point of view also has furthered on our understanding of the opinion farmers have about genetic engineering.
Jens Plassmeier - gave us closer insight into common methods in agriculture.
Dr. Gopaljee Jha - advised us on fungal metabolites.
Paul Zabel - gave us insight into agriculture under extreme conditions.
Michael Kleimann - We had a chance to personally visit Michael Kleimann on his farm to discuss our project and his opinion on the topic. He advised us on several optimisations on our system to make it more applicable for farmers and more competitive towards commonly used fungicides.
Dra. Francismar Corrêa Marcelino-Guimaraes
Wei Xiong - helped us to improve our model regarding split antibiotic resistances
Ravi Singh - gave us closer insight into phage purification processes.
Kristina Waldschmidt - extended our knowledge about crop pathogens by reports on their influence in sub-Saharan Africa. This also improved our understanding of the interaction between crop damaging fungi, the different ways of plant cultivation and styles of artificial irrigation. She also highlighted the focus on making our system resilient against higher doses of UV-rays to adapt it to such conditions.
Bernd Olligs - led us visit his farm and gave us closer insight into actual agriculture.
Felix Beck – Felix Beck contributed to our project by explaining the legal situation of GMOs in Germany and the EU to us. He is a Phd-student of law at the university in Freiburg, looking into just this in his Phd thesis.
Cecile van der Vlugt-Bergmans – We thank Cecile van der Vlugt-Bergmans for giving us insights into the legislation of GMOs in the EU and the Netherlands. She is located at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in the Netherlands.
Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Jany – We thank Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Jany of the “Wissenschaftlerkreis Grüne Gentechnik“ for supporting us in our intend to summarize the legal situation in the EU, Germany and other countries.
Prof. He Xionglei – Prof. He Xionglei from the State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University in China kindly provided us with information about the mutation frequencies and spectra of S. cerevisiae.
Guillaume Garin – Guillaume Garine gave us insights into modeling the disease dynamics of fungi on plants and advised us to rather use models that are more frequently used to predict the resistance gain of fungi. He is located at the iTK in Clapiers, France.
Meike Wittmann – We thank Junior Prof. Meike Wittmann for giving us insights into the general approach of modeling pathogens in their eco-system.
Christine Geffers – Christine Geffers, located at the Charité in Berlin gave us insights into the prevention of fungal infections in hospitals.