Our Team

Meet our team members

We proudly present our team: twelve undergrad students, three advisors, one instructor and one principal investigator. All of them have developed further and carried on this iGEM project throughout the summer. On this arduous journey the team has grown with the tasks, always supported by their supervisors!

Members

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Lucas Arnoldt

Lucas Arnoldt is a second-year molecular biotechnology student. In addition to his love for biology, he enjoys coding and therefore is mostly active in the dry lab. His ability to communicate well with people comes in very handy in finding sponsors for our project. Besides science, being active in politics is a big part of his life. Another topic that he would be glad to discuss is particle physics. Here is an important piece of advice: if you want to stay friends with Lucas, never ever call him LuKas.

Fabian Bradic

Fabian is an amazing teammate. If you need anything, he is always there for you and takes on a lot of tasks. He likes to learn new things – whether it’s painting and playing the piano, or new skills in the professional area. In his job at the DKFZ (German Cancer Research Center) he already gained insights in the work of a molecular biotechnologist. Now, he is seeking a new scientific challenge in iGEM.

Angela Maidhof

Being a former molecular biotechnology student Angela has a Science background, which is not completely senseless for iGEM, as I believe. Nevertheless, Angela decided to do something proper with her life, so she switched to educational sciences with a focus on psychology. Consequently, Angela manages a lot of our outreach, like the organization of our Science Slam and expert interviews. Also, she is main responsible for creating our experiment booklet for schools and educational institutions in the Rhein-Neckar region. Besides being awesome on all the things she touches in iGEM, she also organizes events at her institute and engages in different associations to improve educational possibilities to non-academic pupils. In a nutshell, Angela is a power woman and carries around a secret with her: The secret to be in the best mood everywhere, every time, no matter what happens.

Jannik Berger

Jannik Berger, currently in his 4th semester of molecular biotechnology, is fascinated by biology (especially virology) and excited to see how biotechnology will develop in the future. Despite his many hobbies, be it sportive or musical nature, he still found a place for iGEM in his remaining free time. Nevertheless, he is a hardworking and versatile team member, always one of the first to take on another task or deal with a problem.

Elizaveta Chernova

Born in Russia and raised in Croatia, this Molecular Biotechnologist-to-be is brave enough to embark on the great adventure called iGEM, and this in her first semester. Liza is fluent in five languages, so it's no wonder that she understands both the hard code and the needs of her bacteria. That is why she works with great enthusiasm in both the wet lab and the dry lab. She shows a great sense of responsibility and is involved in almost every aspect of iGEM, from convincing companies to sponsor us to getting involved in social media. If you take a closer look, you can see that Liza always has a finger in the pie, and we are glad that she does because you can always rely on her. When she is not working hard for iGEM or her studies, Liza always finds the time to share another language with the world by playing the flute – the language of music.

Julia Köberle

A molecular biotechnology student in the morning, a lab guru during the day, a reveller at night – all that describes Julia pretty well. Besides being an ace in biotech, she still finds time to pursue her multiple passions: starting from testing what the university sports have to offer this season – Quidditch (Heidelberg Hellhounds AWOOO!), fitness, you name it – to traveling around the world. Whatever superpower helps her to juggle all of that simultaneously and still be a good student, we are happy to have her as our teammate. Always positive and supporting, Julia contributes a lot to the iGEM team not only with great ideas and lots of research, but also with positive energy and magical ass-kicking abilities when it comes to delivering social media content.

Julia Langer

Despite Julia’s passion for biochemistry and her long-lasting experience in the lab, the sometimes-mindless pipetting for the promise of top grades raised the undeniable longing to create a project of rewarding benefit and purpose. A project, she identifies with. A project conceived by herself. A project like iGEM 2020. She is a highly social and encouraging co-worker and team-member, fully committing to our collective goals for this year.
However, social distancing makes everything a bit harder in 2020, especially encountering one of our name-twins Liza, Lucas or Julia, in a video-lacking call. Never upset about being mistaken, Julia stays patient and calm. Traits, she most likely learned from her favorite activity: underwater hockey.

Elizaveta Bobkova

From A – atoms and aikido to Z – zinkfingers and zebrafishes, Liza's interests spread as wide as Russia where her roots are. Being an outstanding young scientist, she is eager to bring her team to the very top. Liza’s experience and passion led her to the position of our wet-lab boss, but she is still involved in every tiny detail of the project, keeping everything under control and making things work. Liza is an irreplaceable team member and the number of things she can help you with is truly fascinating. Wanna know how to cultivate extremophiles? Ask Liza. Need someone to talk to about the deep philosophical meaning of the Lord of the Rings book series? Liza. Didn't get that one quantum mechanics equation and need some explanation? Liza! To sum up, she is just amazing.

Wangjun Hu

Brains? Check. Fitness? Check. Biology? Check. Mathematics? Check. iGEM? Check! Whether you need work done in the wet lab, numerical heavy lifting on the cluster or the other kind of heavy lifting in the gym, Wangjun is your go-to guy. Starting out as your regular MoBi, he has quickly branched into mathematics and computer science and has become a motivated and valuable member of our iGEM Team.

Lukas Voos

Lukas is in his 6th semester of studying Molecular Biotechnology. Already early on, he followed the universe's call to the wet lab when he engaged in a volunteer program at the German Cancer Research Center right out of high school. Being an experienced Boy Scout with great wilderness skills, he had no trouble fighting the artisan challenges in the laboratory and quickly found his new biosphere there. Lukas is a really open-minded guy who likes to be close to his friends and always aims high.

Mario Wisbar

Mario Wisbar – in many respects, he is an image of the unexpected in our team. He is our expert of the colorful world of aquaristics as he deals with the daily pleasures of corals and seawater exchange. Often enough, his passion drives him to automate his reef tank in its last detail. Consequently, he is working in the dry lab, and he holds the whole team together by organizing social events, which often enough satisfies his P&P addiction. Mario is currently ironically overthinking how to include his experience as former vice national champion in curling into the project.

Maria Kuchina

Maria Kuchina, born in Russia, is a life- affirming iGEM companion from Heidelberg who is finishing her Bachelor thesis in molecular biotechnology alongside iGEM. Her mind resembles a chaotic bouncing pinball, jumping through all regions of science and philosophy, not afraid of asking many questions about physics, IT and ethics. Arguing with her is an enjoyment due to her positive outlook on life and kindness. Her motivation to participate to iGEM is driven from the same ambition as her scholarships: fighting global challenges of humanity like cancer, aging and death.

Supervisors

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Prof. Stefan Wölfl

Prof. Wölfl is professor for Pharmaceutical Biology, Bioanalytics and Molecular Biology at the Institute for Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Heidelberg since 2003. He received his PhD in 1990 at the Free University Berlin. With his research group he elucidates molecular mechanisms of underlying drug action, cell metabolism and the regulation of cellular differentiation.

In his spare time Prof. Wölfl is committed to the iGEM team at the University of Heidelberg. In 2019, he joined iGEM Heidelberg as the principal investigator for the first time. One year later, Prof. Wölfl still endures our never-ending technical and organizational questions and issues. We could benefit from his knowledge in molecular biology and advice for our work in the wet lab. His support in bureaucratic questions of all kind always guided us through this arduous journey called iGEM! Thank you very much!

Michael Jendrusch

Without Michael, iGEM would be unthinkable at Heidelberg University. Since the age of about 20 he is a regular member of the team. Shortly after his first participation, he became an important part of the organization of future iGEM teams. When he is not working two jobs simultaneously, he is pushing our research doing bioinformatics and machine learning tasks. During the short rare periods when he is not doing something productive, he is designing funny stickers or showing us his acting talent by playing a kleptomaniac engineer in our pen and paper sessions.

Christian Kobrow

Christian Kobrow is doing his master’s degree in physics. He is fully efficient in his tasks and always thirsty for new experiences and knowledge. Christian is gladly expanding his wealthy repertoire of knowledge in new fields of science, but at the same time stays loyal to his passion by doing some computational physics in the dry lab. In his rare free time, he likes to explore the world with his bicycle, play badminton and also video games. Christian can be described as a bookworm and a cat lover and brings an efficient and irreplaceable approach to the team.

Lukas Bange

One of the few physicists on the Team, Lukas Bange joined the iGEM Team While finishing his master thesis. Being a very experimentally driven Person, Lukas is part of the wetlab Crew. When he is not in a lab somewhere, he can usually be found enjoying a good read or Video game. With his background in physics, Lukas brings new approaches to the teams' problem-Solving abilities, including quick google skills. Lukas can be easily recognized by wearing Shirts either referencing metal Bands or Video games

Team:Heidelberg/Team