Team:CLS CLSG UK/People

Our 2019 project ended in disaster. After missing multiple deadlines and being way behind schedule, we were forced to withdraw from that year’s iGEM competition. In addition, our PI, Mr Zivinic, was given greater responsibilities in our Senior Management Team at school which meant that he did not have the time to lead iGEM the following year. As students who had spent a year tirelessly researching, fundraising and brainstorming, we were all extremely disappointed. However, we did not lose hope immediately. Two younger members from the 2019 project took it upon themselves to find a new PI, create a new team and brainstorm for a new idea. Yashaar and Louis faced many difficulties along the way (coronavirus being just one of them). After countless meetings, many research sessions (which at one point were 2 hours long everyday of the week) and hundreds of video calls, we finally came up with our current project. From organisation to wiki, presentation video to human practices, this year's project was very much student led. We believe that getting to this stage is a great achievement and we look forward to seeing everyone at the jamboree.

Pupils

Louis Gringras

Louis is an invaluable asset to our team. His deep attention to detail and focus upon every aspect of the project makes him a brilliant co-leader. He has been instrumental for the success of this year’s project, spending tens of hours researching, organising and critiquing. In addition, he managed to successfully lead our lab work team despite the multiple hurdles coronavirus presented. On top of that, he is extremely organised and always knows what he is doing (or at least makes it look that way). We all know he will make an incredible biochemist in the future.

Yashaar Daad

Yashaar is our glorious co-leader - he enters rooms to reverent calls of ‘Daad’. Having been involved in the 2019 team he then took the mantle of team leader with Louis for the 2020 team. Throughout the project, his contributions relating to the project, organisation and hardware has been invaluable. As well as this Yashaar managed to pull together our promotional video in a matter of days and our final push for wiki freeze gave Yashaar his first ever all-nighter. It would be an understatement to say that this project would not have been possible without him.

Jared Stoloff

Being on the project for two years now and as current co-head of human practices, Jared can easily be considered an iGEM veteran. Whether it involves research, human practices or hardware, he has always been ready to help. Outside of iGEM, he acts, plays for the school basketball team and is one of this year’s head boys. Nobody quite understands how he manages to find time for iGEM given his nauseating array of other activities.

Isabella Yeo Frank

Isabella is one of our aspiring medics. She is diligent and methodical in her process while always enjoying research sessions (occasionally a little too much). In addition, she has been a great help in human practices, creating valuable collaborations with Thames water.

Isaac Tolley

Isaac has iGEM in his blood. With his brother being on the 2017 team, Isaac had plenty of iGEM experience prior to his own membership. Along with his great support in research and hardware, he has led the fundraising team through a great year. He plans on studying Natural Sciences next year at university and we wish him all the best for the future.

Asad Khan

Asad has been our wiki saviour. Alongside his great work on hardware and research, he spent over 50 hours on our wiki and almost drove himself to madness prior to wiki freeze. If you ask him his least favourite word in the world, he would answer: “scaling.” As a future computer scientist, he vows to never lay his finger on web page design ever again.

Ela T.

Since joining our team. Ela has been extremely helpful. From research to human practises, safety and presentation, Ela really is a ‘jack of all trades’. As well as this Ela acted as our spy last year. While on a course in Stanford she spied on their project and reported back to us. Ela is hoping to cross the pond again for university, applying to Stanford, Harvard and Yale amongst many others. We wish her the very best and we have no doubts about the great things she will go onto achieve.

Lucza Losonci Johnson

One half of our iGEM couple, Lucza has co-led human practises to a very successful year. An integral member of the group as a whole, Lucza has been with us for the last 2 years, contributing to research at the beginning but finding her true calling in Human Practises. Hoping to study medicine next year, the skills she gained from her work over the last 2 years will stand her in good stead, and we wish her all the best with this

Milla Ivanova

A vital part of our close knit modelling team, Milla has exceeded expectations with the model the team produced, and while communicating with the part of the team at the boys school has not always been easy but the final model produced is a testament to the perseverance.

Kaavya Kanagarajah

Kaavya was an essential asset to our team; she was crucial in our planning of the lab work. As well as this, Kaavya was heavily involved in collaborations, managing to book a full day worth of zoom and skype calls with different iGEM teams around the world. Her contributions have been great, she is always reliable and we wish her all the best with whatever she does in the future.

Lucas Czajka

As our team's project creator Lucas's contributions were monumental our ability to enter iGEM this year. Lucas was doing some early research into human cocaine esterase when he found a dead eel on the shores of the Thames, after a bit more reading he put two and two together and CocEels was born. Beyond this, he did indeed contribute heavily to our project, attending many of our long and laborious research sessions. He hopes to attend an American university next year, where he intends to set up an iGEM team. We cannot wait to see how that turns out and we wish him the best of luck with everything he does.

Sahil Shah

Sahil is organised, meticulous and composed at all times. He too is of iGEM blood, with his brother a member of the CLSB 2017 team. He has been a significant help for both research and human practices teams. Having chosen no science A-levels, we hope that iGEM didn’t put him off and wait for his return from the dark side, that is the humanities, in due course.

Ethan Santos

Wanting to study biology at University, Ethan has been interested in both theoretical and practical aspects of the project. He is one of our few pipette wielding experimentalists who spent long hours during our lab work, preparing ELISA plates (as many iGEMmers know, this is an absolutely exhilarating job). Outside of the lab, he is one of the best basketball players in the school.

Yeshin Yoon

Yeshin is a quiet yet important member of our team. He was a great help throughout the project, especially during hardware, where he spent much time on our cost breakdown. We thank him for his consistent dedication and wish him the best for his higher studies.

Peter Heywood

Peter’s role in this year’s iGEM project is in direct correlation to his height (he is currently 6 ft 3” and growing). He has always been on-call, ready for a chance to either research complex synthetic biology or send very cringy iGEM memes. We are sure he will perform greatly as leader of our 2021 team.

Joseph Hee

Many of us believe that Joseph is indeed not human. Along with holding his rank as the number one table tennis player in the UK, and occasionally training for 3 hours on weekdays, he has been extremely helpful during all stages of the project. Particularly, he was one of three members on our team who spent 8 hours on lab work, a feat due to which he still complains of an aching hand. We wish him all the best for his service in the Singaporean army next year.

Cassidy Ashworth

Cass is perhaps the only person we know who is always in a good mood, no matter the circumstance. Being one of the only physicists on the team, he was a huge help during our hardware project, in which much of the explanations on aptasensors were performed by him. He plans on studying Natural Sciences at university next year and we wish all the best of luck.

Rohan Prakash

Rohan helped us with the designing of our handbook quizzes, which are part of our science communication section. We also thank him greatly in his attempt to model a 3D lamella clarifier plate - many of us will know that this is not an easy task.

Alex Wallop

Almost single-handedly completing the final model, Alex has spent way too many hours trying to understand biological processes. But, in saying that, his mathematical abilities cannot be questioned and his persistence and late nights have paid dividends. The final model he produced is an excellent display of that. Hoping to study chemistry at university we wish him all the best for the future.

Jian Hui Mo

Jian Hui is one of two fifth formers on our team. He has helped hugely in creation of our project promotional video and presentation videos. Without him, we may have had to rely upon Yashaar’s disastrous iMovie skills. We wish him all the best for his GCSEs this year.

Arabella Henderson

Working closely with Milla in the modelling team Bella has shown herself to be an excellent mathematician who helped us get from the start to end point of our model. The finished product is astonishing and we thank Bella for the role she played in getting there. We wish her all the best in the future.

Nathan Leung

Nathan helped out with our modelling, checking the maths and also helping to code the iterative model due to his experience in MATLAB. His extraordinary mathematics skills have strengthened our models and it is safe to say that they would not be as complete and thorough without his help. He hopes to study mathematics at university and we wish him the very best for all that lies in his future.

Gautam Krishna

Gautam is the only fifth former we know capable of understanding PhD level electrical engineering. He is the mind and soul of our hardware potentiostat and, for him, understanding hundreds of lines of complex Arduino code is “a piece of cake.” He also prides himself in having the ability to fly a drone around a science classroom (we made sure no bacteria were out during such events) and has been very helpful in the filming of our presentation video.

Beatrix Villiers

Providing much of the art for the wiki and our branding throughout, Beatrix was a later addition to the team but the evidence of her impact is all around to see, from the logo to the front page Beatrix’s contributions have added an element to our project that many of us scientists struggle with: design. She is hoping to study at university in the USA next year and we wish her all the best.

Will Newman

Will joined our team very much at the last minute and was a real lifesaver in the art department. Adding to Beatrix’s efforts, Will managed to add diagrams that were crucial for both the design of our wiki but also its ability to communicate the ideas we were trying to get across. Will is hoping to go to veterinary school and we wish him all the best with this.

Instructors

Mr Hall

This is Mr Hall’s first year in charge of an iGEM team. With his background in Zoology, Mr Hall has had the enormous task of taking over from Mr Zivanic (our previous PI), and while the last 12 months have not always been easy, his guidance and advice has been critical for our project’s success. We can only thank Mr Hall for everything he has done and wish him all the best running iGEM 2021!

Dr Tibbits

Dr Tibbits, the teacher in charge of iGEM at City of London School for girls, has been wonderful. Having been involved in the project in 2019, him and Mr Hall worked closely together to run this team, especially in its early stages. His comments and help have been consistent and regular, unlike his ability to successfully join video calls.