Team:Panama/Team/Gallery/student

Age: 19 years

Career: Biology degree.

Specialization area: Zoology

Institution: University of Panama.

e-mail: nanagope@gmail.com

Hobbies: read books, papers, write about general things that happened in life and that pass through my mind, play guitar, sing, play tennis, spend time with my family and messing around with friends and finally, one of the most important things for me, be absorbed in my own thoughts.

iGEM expectations: This is a great step for doing something for the humanity. The entire world could change for good thanks to the synthetic biology. The power is in our hands, let`s do better things for the future.

Research interests: I am extremely interested in conducting research in order to contribute to the knowledge and development of humanity in the scientific field. Since I was a child, my passion has been to study animal behavior. However, since I joined to study biology, the ecology and the environmental biology has been very important to me primarily because we are living a crucial moment for the world as global warming. Now I see more clearly that the synthetic biology is a good new increasing field to combat this and one good example is what we are doing in our proyect of rhamnolipids. I have many questions, there are now many aspects of biology that I like to investigate. I am looking for many answers. To go deeper and deeper into the wonderful world of the study of life, I reaffirm the maxim of Socrates, "I only know that I know nothing", and that gives me more thirsty of wanting to know.

Age: 25

Degree: Biotechnology

Institution: INDICASAT

Hobbies: I really don't think of myself as a person that has or cultivates "hobbies" at this point in my life since all of my time is shared between my thesis project (almost done! Yeay for me!) and the iGEM venture. This keeps me in the lab A LOT but I enjoy it very much. A few of the things that I do to blow off steam is sing (not only in the shower) because it helps me concentrate and make an otherwise bad day into a less stressful one. I absolutely enjoy the times when my best friend and I go out to have nice meals, as my grandmother used to say "Eating is the only thing that we bring with us when we go back to mother earth." A little hippie, I know. Finally, hanging out with my friends from the lab is one the things that I very much enjoy. When we are all together, we have a really hard time keeping a straight face. That's good.

The iGEM Experience: When I first learned about this, I had no idea what it was all about. Once it was all clear, let's get to work. All of the work done at the lab have all been worth it in order to come up with something that would help the world in some way, something that would further solidify Panama's position on the world map of research; a position that has been and continues to be nurtured by the best. I hope that everyone enjoys learning about our rhamnolipid project as much as we have enjoyed concieving and producing it.

Research Interests: Sometimes I feel that I should know by now what is it that I want to invest the rest of my life doing, but being in biotechnology has taught me so much in so many areas that sometimes it's hard for me to make up my mind! I've always wanted to know what makes things tick (bacterias, viruses, parasites, etc.), with a little bit of that knowledge, I can try to find better ways for them to tick or, stop them from ticking (only if it's a bad tick). For my immediate future, I'm very interested in pursuing a doctorate degree in Pharmaceutical biotechnology.

Age: 24

Degree: Microbiology Undergraduate student

Institution: Universidad de Panama, Smithsonian Tropical Reasearch Institute intern

e-mail: ernestopro@hotmail.com

Hobbies: Think, learn about life, fungus growing ants biology, read about phylosophy, history, science and sci-fi, listen music (playing guitar, drums, sing, specially rock music), write, I like to hear and talk with my parents and old people, I love to work in the lab and outdoor lab, sleep is the greatest pleasure, persue of happiness.

The iGEM Experience: One of the best scientific experience that I have had. I feel that I am part of something huge in terms of scientific development. I am learning a lot from the instructors, advisors and my colleagues in the lab respect to biotechnology. As a biology student am trying to understand life through evolution and how life works in his multiple forms. With the iGEM experience I am starting to see life with another perspective under the umbrella of synthetic biology, that is trying to figure it out how to desing and modify biological systems into a standard way. Richard Feynman said ‘What I cannot create, I do not understand.’ this became one of the slogans of us, as biological engineering. Now I have a better way to understand life with the synergy between Biology and engineered. The iGEM program made me a pioneer in this new scientific discipline in my country and I really want to keep working in this field.

Research Interests: Life understanding through evolution is my passion. I am an undergraduate student in Biology oriented in microbiology. I have been working those few years with the biology of the fungus growing ants as intern in the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Here in the department of behavior and evolution I start my travel into scientific research, studying how ants interact with microorganisms, how ants work against diseases, evolution of profilactic behaviors in the fungus growing ants, simbiosis, antagonism, co-evolution, bacterias, fungus, antibiotics, ecology are terms with that I have been familiarized. The development of engineered biology became one of my interest when I was studying microbial genetics, the manipulation of DNA brings to us a full knowledge of how life works and I am really interested to be involved of this kind of investigations. Now with iGEM, the Synthetic Biology appears to me as one step further of biology engineering and I am doing a complete diving in biotechnology techniques with the aim to learn how to design and modify biological systems. I will keep studying and working in this field because it leads us to the full application of biology as a substance.