Team:Wroclaw/Attributions

Attributions

From this place, we want to thank everyone who contributed to the creation of our project. We really appreciate that such a large group of people wanted to help us work on our idea. We described these wonderful people below:

General support

His Magnificence professor Tadeusz Trziszka, PhD BEng, Rector at Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences - We wouldn't be at the Gant Jamboree if not his amazing heart and huge support. Thanks to his help, we are one of the fewest Universities in the country that participated in the iGEM

BEng, PhD, DSc Zbigniew Lazar – supervisor of our project. Our team was formed on the professor's initiative. He was always there for us to help in the laboratory and give valuable advice throughout our entire work on the project. In addition, he helped in reasarch, creating a plasmid project, biobricks and primer design.

Vice-Rector prof PhD DSc Józef Sowiński, Vice-Rector prof BEng, PhD, DSc Jarosław Bosy, Dean BEng, PhD, DSc Anna Czubaszek – They enabled us to go to the iGEM Spring Festival in order to get advice, contacts and collaborate with other teams. Thanks to this, we are richer in the knowledge we need in the field of biological sciences, which helped us a lot in our project.

Project support and advice

Prof BEng, PhD DSc Joanna Szyda, PhD Magda Mielczarek, supervisor of Bioinformatics Student Association – we received help and valuable advice at the beginning of work on our project. Thanks to them, we were able to clarify our topic and enter into a polemic over the approach to our research work. We received valuable advice that resulted in further work on the project.

Prof PhD DSc Waldemar Rymowicz – the professor provided us with the teaching materials we needed and gave us biological material without which we could not work in the laboratory.

Fundraising help and advice

The spokesperson Jolanta Cianciara – the spokesperson gave us valuable advice on how to raise funds for our project. Thanks to it, we were able to collect money that was allocated for our development, and above all our project.

PhD Katarzyna Lech-Książkiewicz, MSc Joanna Bonarowska – priceless help in completing various applications and other important documents

Lab support

BEng, PhD DSc Zbigniew Lazar, PhD candidate BEng MSc Tadeusz Witkowski, PhD candidate BEng MSc Piotr Hapeta – priceless help in working in a wet lab. Thanks to their valuable experience we were more confident in what we do and we always received help from them.

Other technical support

Blue Dot Solutions - company that kindly printed a 3d model of our filter for us.

Project advisor

PhD Przemysław Nuc - through His experience from the Giant Jamboree it was easier for us to work on the project. He provided us with professional support at all stages of our work. He always served good and friendly advice, 24/7!

Wiki support

All of us! Every one of us had something to describe, and then it was put together through the magic of HTML language ;)

Linguistic advice

Study of Foreign Language, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences - we received the help from our english tutors in preparation for the presentation and poster session.

Financial support

Ministry of Science and Higher Education - grant for the entire project together with the opportunity to participate at Giant Jamboree.

Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences - helped us with the registration for the contest & organisation of the trip to iGEM Spring Festival in Bonn

Our team

Sylwia Kawalec: Wet lab, keeping a laboratory diary, member of the "Medals" section, contributes to the creation of WIKI: a description of our inspiration and solution to the problem.

Klaudia Bukowiec: My job in our team was contact with sponsors: I was writing emails to companies and I told a lot of people about contest. I was talking with people who work in our university and I tried to find money for our research. Also, I helped with documents and supported my team.

Jagoda Pierścińska: Beside standard work in the lab, I was responsible for all of the graphics & coding stuff (like creating our Wiki page or making our comics, screenplay and animations for our video) as well as DTP (i.e. business cards, posters etc.). I created our Facebook page and managed contacts with a few other groups that we collaborated with. Furthermore I was responsible for our project promotion through some presentations.

Patrycja Sokalska: Wet lab, member of „Medals” and „Judging form” section, work on keeping a laboratory diary, preparation of the project summary and inspirations.

Kamila Liman: Team leader: responsible for project coordination and responsibilities division between members of the team. Found herself in the Financial Support section - one of her responsibilities was to find connections in the industry sector via e-mails to provide the Team with the potential buissnes partners, another task she had to take care of was to submitt an application to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, which enabled the Team to take part in the Gant Jamboree.

As part of the Human Practices section, she validated our project through consultation with Dr Rodrigo Ledesma Amaro and his students from Imperial College London.

As part of the Safety section under the direction of Team's PI, she took care of completing the Safety Form.

In laboratory work, she dealt with the research, project description and she worked in the wet lab on RNA isolation, genetic engineering - creating a construct containing a promoter responding to high concentration of heavy metals, and genes responsible for the production of lycopene, she also studied the viability of cells exposed to high concentrations and heavy metals.

Agata Rot: As a member of the iGEM Wrocław team, I belonged to the special awards section. My task was to analyze which awards we are able to apply for and what else we have to do for that. In addition, I actively participated in applying for funding for our project by the ministry in the "best of the best" program. I also took part in the laboratory part of our project. Together with Kamila Liman and Dawid Słomian, we developed a research plan based on available scientific publications and then patiently implemented it, refining it depending on the results obtained.

Patryk Józefiak: In my team I was looking for sponsors and cooperation with our university. I tried to organize the financing of our research. I organized a trip to Bonn for the iGEM spring festival. I also supported my team while working in the lab.

Patryk Surmacz: I was responsible for collaborations. I also provived support in terms of translation. Furthermore I helped in wet lab.

Dawid Słomian: My role was social media, working in the laboratory, preparing statistics and creating promotional videos for our project. I also worked in wet lab.

Our work on the project

The brainstorming started at the beginning of October then we had the first meeting in a new team. The main rules of the competition were presented to us and we had time to think about, delve into the iGEM competition and try to come up with the subject of our project. At the next meeting, we were already prepared and everyone had many ideas in mind about synthetic biology. After several hours of debating, we decided! Yarrowia lipolityca! This is the key to success. After this debate, we began to look for any information about its properties, use and how to bite this topic. Fortunately, we had with us educated staff who were always able to help us. A few meetings away we had a ready goal, project description, action plan and we were ready to enter the laboratory. Our first entry to the laboratory took place in June. Each of us was excited about the fact that we could do something great. However, our enthusiasm was quickly extinguished because not everything went our way. There were problems. Some laboratory activities we had to repeat several times to make sure that what we assumed we are able to get and not always it came out. So the euphoria turned into a monotonous job. But we didn't give up! We continued to work hard to achieve the desired goal, which was far away for us. During the holidays, we were able to accomplish some of the things we assumed to do. Despite the fact that we did not manage to do everything, we are very pleased with the results of our project, and above all we are richer in new experience, thanks to which we used ourselves and know how to deal with some laboratory problems.