Team:UCSF/Team

Advisors/Buddies

James Onuffer: This is my second year of involvement and the second year the Cell Propulsion Lab has hosted the team. It was quite an experience to set up the program this year, especially since this is a subject area that we had not begun working on in the Cell Propulsion Lab. The immune response to cancer is a challenging topic to take on (especially coupled with synthetic biology) and required an intensive two week bootcamp to teach the students basic concepts and endogenous systems/parts that they should be aware of. We challenged the students to come up with designs for synthetic cytotoxicity logic gates and increasing the cytotoxic response. It was quite rewarding to see them propose various devices during their team challenge and to see them take charge of getting them prioritized, made , and tested. Things did not always go smoothly, after all this goes with the territory. They had to learn to be organized, think on their feet, and be problem solvers.......quite a growth opportunity that I’m sure will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Russell Gordley:I majored in Biochemistry at Swarthmore College, and performed my graduate studies with Carlos Barbas at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. I am interested in using synthetic biology to understand and enhance the evolvability of biological systems.

After my freshman year in college, I took a summer internship with Jim Stivers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The practice of research turned out to be far more complex and interesting than I could have imagined--an intellectual marathon whose path is revealed with each new data set and disproven hypothesis. I am happy to participate in a program that immerses high school students in the research process. For anyone interested in a life of science, this is a great time to join the pursuit!

Jesse:I got started in science research with a summer internship after my junior year in high school and I was hooked! I majored in Biochemical Sciences at Harvard and went on to get my Ph.D. in Chemistry at Stanford, where I studied how enzymes speed up chemical reactions that are otherwise incredibly slow. My current research at UCSF is focused on cell signaling, where enzymes play an important roProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0

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. I am trying to understand how signaling enzymes maintain specificity for the correct targets and avoid signaling mixups. Being introduced to science research in high school inspired me to pursue science in college and beyond, and I got involved with the iGEM team to help share that experience with new students.