The Team

We are the VT-ENSIMAG biosecurity team, linking both Virginia Tech and ENSIMAG and hosted at Virginia Tech(VT) by the synthetic biology group at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI).

VT

Virginia Tech is located at Blacksburg, VA (USA) where 30,000+ students study in one of the nine colleges and grad school. Established in 1872 , as the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College , and now Virginia Tech , it houses over 65 bachelor's degree programs. It's motto , Ut Prosim (That I may serve) is inculcated in each student, and we strove to bring it to our work in the project.Most Bachelor's degrees are ideally 4 years , where students combine core curriculum with various liberal arts courses to bring the concept of a well rounded education to fruition. (http://www.vt.edu/about/)

VBI

The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute is a research institute dedicated to the study of the biological sciences at Virginia Tech. By using bioinformatics, which combines transdisciplinary approaches to information technology and biology, researchers at VBI interpret and apply vast amounts of biological data generated from basic research to some of today¿s key challenges in the biomedical, environmental and agricultural sciences.

(https://www.vbi.vt.edu/about_vbi/)

ENSIMAG

The ENSIMAG is located in Grenoble, France. It is a top French educational institution in informatics, applied mathematics and telecommunications, pioneer in the field of information processing. Ensimag students stay three years in this engineering school where they finish their BS (students had already prepared for two years the admission exam to the ENSIMAG school in another institution) and get a master degree in CS and applied math (plus specialization).

(http://ensimag.grenoble-inp.fr/)

Synthetic biology group

The Synthetic biology group's research focuses on Computer Assisted Design of synthetic genetic systems, Linguistic models of biological sequences, Stochastic dynamics of the yeast cell cycle and Quantitative imaging.

(https://www.vbi.vt.edu/faculty/research_groups/synthetic_biology)

Supervisor

Jean Peccoud, associate professor in Virginia Bioinformatics Institute

Email: jpeccoud@vbi.vt.edu

[http://www.peccoud.org http://www.peccoud.org]

[http://www.linkedin.com/in/peccoud http://www.linkedin.com/in/peccoud]

https://twitter.com/peccoud

[http://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-2374-2008 http://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-2374-2008]

Advisor

Laura Adam: Genetic, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (GBCB) PhD student, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech.

Email: ladam@vbi.vt.edu

http://web.me.com/laura.adam/Laura_Adam/

Students

Olivier Mirat

Email: mirato@ensimag.fr

Concentration: Computer Science/Math Masters student (Mathematical modeling, images, simulation; option Bioinformatics)

School: ENSIMAG

Future Plans: Start working on a PhD next year.

Gaëlle Letort

Email: gaelle.letort@ensimag.imag.fr

Concentration: Computer Science/Math Masters student (Mathematical modeling, images, simulation; option Bioinformatics)

School: ENSIMAG

Future Plans: I would like to work on research on mathematics and computer science applied to biology. I'm looking for a six-months internship followed by a PhD on a subject on this area. More precisely, I think I am more interested in the probability field and inversed methods for the mathematics part, and more on genetics or epidemiology for the biology component.

Arunima Srivastava

Email: arunima2@vt.edu

Concentration: Computer Science Undergraduate

School: Virginia Tech

Future Plans: Next step for me is an internship in mobile applications, and after graduation in another 3 semesters , I would like to pursue a Master's Program in Artificial Intelligence , followed by a Master's in Business Administration.

Michael Kozar

Email: mkozar07@vt.edu

Concentration: Biochemistry/French Undergraduate

School: Virginia Tech

Future Plans: After graduation, I intend on pursuing a graduate degree in a scientific discipline. I am unsure in which direction my focus will turn: synthetic biology or chemistry.

Tyler Stewart

Email: stewartt@vt.edu

Concentration: Biology/Biochemistry Undergraduate

School: Virginia Tech

Future Plans: After graduation this spring, I plan to pursue a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.