Attributions

Previous iGEM Teams

UC British Columbia 2015 who inspired us to design a probiotic to help bees break down imidacloprid. Although we decided on pursuing different breakdown pathways for our probiotic, this team inspired our initial project goal.

Alberta Team 2018 - who also designed a probiotic for bees to instead treat fungal infections (Nosema) in honeybees.

Undergraduate Students

Kate Adams-Boone - Kate was part of the Device team, focusing on designing feeder prototypes and developing experimental testing protocols. She also animated several videos for the educational video series.

Emma Boismier - Emma was part of the Gene Engineering team. She designed the DNA constructs for the secretion system in S. alvi. She planned and wrote protocols for the experiments conducted, as well as researched different enzymes to be used in the project further down the line. She also contributed to the YouTube channel by helping to write scripts and narrate videos.

Emma Dester - Emma was a part of the Device team, helping research the literature review and designing bee feeders. She also helped with designing and editing the wiki, as well as editing our informational videos for our collaborative YouTube channel.

Larissa Ford - Gene Engineering Team: background research on bee behavior, guts, bacteria, etc. Researching/designing bio-containment constructs. Designing and ordering gblocks and primers. Genome integration research/design.

Jacob Jensen - Jacob was a member of the Bioinformatics team and was also a part of wiki development. This year, he conducted literature reviews and assisted in protocol creation for experiments with P. putida as well as calculating project feasibility with imidacloprid sequestration. In addition, he also reviewed several educational videos during the iGEM: Breaking Down SynBio collaboration.

Madeline Martin - Madeline was a member of the Bioinformatics team working on learning methods to develop the transcriptomic and metabolomic profiles of the soil microbe P. putida. She has developed documentation for future iGEM teams to learn computational protein modeling, conduct RNA sequencing, and analyze RNA-seq data. She wrote and reviewed several educational video series as part of MichiganState’s collaboration, iGEM: Breaking Down SynBio.

Nathaniel Pascual - Nathaniel was a member of the Bioinformatics team working on learning methods to develop the transcriptomic and metabolomic profiles of the soil microbe P. putida. He has developed documentation for future MichiganState iGEM teams to utilize supercomputing resources at Michigan State University and learning the classical and feature-based molecular networking workflows offered by the GNPS ecosystem. He wrote, edited, and narrated several educational video series as part of MichiganState’s collaboration, iGEM: Breaking Down SynBio.

Anthony Su - Anthony was part of the Device team, focusing on software and hardware development for the bee feeders. He also helped with designing and editing the wiki. Being the first returning iGEM member for MichiganState, he has helped structure and guide the team towards success and proposed new technological equipment that would assist future teams at MichiganState.

Haley Velisek - Haley Velisek was a part of the gene engineering team and focused on researching secretion systems and quantifying fluorescent protein secretion. She also helped with plasmid design.

Graduate Mentors

Shaylynn Miller - We would like to thank Shay for taking the time to perform our Imidacloprid-exposure experiments. She also provided valuable feedback on the practical execution of our experimental design as well as assisting our device team.

Kathryne Ford - We would like to thank Kati for mentoring the Gene Engineering team. She guided us throughout the entirety of the project, from brainstorming biocontainment ideas, instructing us on how to use Benchling, explaining synthetic biology concepts, and helping with the design of the experiments. She also performed the lab experiments for transforming S. alvi with the secretion system plasmid when the team had no access to the lab this year.

Professorial Instructors

The team couldn't have been a part of iGEM without the help of the professors. With their help, they recruited, funded, guided, and trained the team.

Dr. Michaela Teravest and the Teravest Lab

Dr. Bjoern Hamberger

Dr. Robert Quinn and the Quinn Lab

Dr. Danny Ducat

Dr. Masako Harada

Dr. Greg Bonito

Special thanks to Dr. Michaela TerAvest, Dr. Bjoern Hamburger, and Dr. Danny Ducat for supporting and guiding the iGEM team at MichiganState University since 2016.

Special Thanks

Dr. Ellsworth - for project support and advice. More details on how they supported the team can be found on our Integrated Human Practices Page

Dr. Thorp - for human practices and project support and advice. More details on how they supported the team can be found on our Integrated Human Practices Page

Dr. Barrick - for project support and advice. More details on how they supported the team can be found on our Integrated Human Practices Page

Brian Peterson - for human practices and project support and advice. More details on how they supported the team can be found on our Integrated Human Practices Page

Dr. Huang - for project support and advice. More details on how they supported the team can be found on our Integrated Human Practices Page

Dr. Milbrath - for project support and advice. More details on how they supported the team can be found on our Integrated Human Practices Page

Dr. Stefania Almazán Casali - for human practices advice concerning the design of our survey.

Dr. Arjun Krishnan - At the beginning of the project, Dr. Krishnan helped the bioinformatics team figure out what bioinformatics projects they can do, giving them a good starting project that evolved into more meaningful complex projects.

Dr. Kevin Childs - Dr. Kevin Childs educated the bioinformatics team in great detail about RNA Sequencing. He relayed very specific information regarding protocols.

Dr. Kerri Neugebauer & Dr. Christian Martin - We would like to thank both Dr. Neugebauer and Dr. Martin from the Quinn Lab for their time preparing and running samples through their Thermo Q-Exactiive LC-MS/MS mass spectrometer. We would also like to thank Dr. Martin for taking the time to help us fine-tune metabolite analysis and organize the data generated from our Imidacloprid exposure experiments.

Nicholas Tefft - We would like to thank Nicholas from the TerAvest Lab for taking the time to organize the logistics of ordering all of the supplies we needed to perform our Imidacloprid-exposure experiments.