Team:ESBS-Strasbourg/Team

Undergraduates

• Camille Bernard
• Fabian Stiefel
• Georgio Kourjian
• Jens-Sebastian Kalchschmidt
• Morgane Griesbeck
• Pierre Dillard
• Raphaël Doineau
• Renaud Renault
• Sebastien Pigeot
• Thea Ziegler
• Yohann Lacotte
• Yves Gendrault

Advisors

• Pr. Jacques Haiech

Instructors

• Pr. Maria Zeniou
• Pr. Christophe Lallement
• Pr. Morgan Madec

Our Universities

• ESBS - Biotech School
• University of Strasbourg

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Fabian is now in the ninth semester and so at his last year as student at the Ecole supérieure de Biotechnology de Strasbourg (ESBS). Before he entered the ESBS he studied two years of chemistry at the University of Freiburg, Germany. The idea of trilingual courses in four Universities in three different countries was and is very thrilling to him. He is very fond of synthetic biology and he wants to continue in this domain of research for his diploma/ master thesis. He finds it also very exciting to work with a highly motivated team on a self chosen project for the summer.

Georgio joined the Ecole supérieure de Biotechnology de Strasbourg (ESBS) after he got his B.Sc degree in Biochemistry at the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille France. Currently he is in the last year of the master’s program in this trinational Biotechnology school. He was interested about synthetic biology and the idea of designing and building new biological functions and systems not found in nature that is why he joined the ESBS iGEM team. He thinks that participating at the iGEM competition is a very enriching experience.
For him diploma thesis a part of his work will be the use of synthetic biology for medical purposes.
He was mainly responsible of the wiki creation.

Jens is in his last year as student at the Ecole supérieure de Biotechnology de Strasbourg (ESBS). Before he enrolled in the ESBS he studied 2 years molecular biotechnology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He decided to take the chance to continue his biotechnology studies within the trilingual study course biotechnology at the ESBS implicating four universities in three countries. In retrospect, he must say that it was absolutely the right choice and the first long-term contact with the international research community. His research interests focus mostly on immunology and infectious diseases, but the iGEM participation sparked his interest in synthetic biology.

Personal remark: Marathon preparation can be best done during incubation times.

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Pierre is currently in his ninth semester at the ESBS. Previously he has done two years in CPGE BCPST where he received a good education in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. In the ESBS he specialized himself in synthetic biology because he think that this field can be the future of the biology. iGEM was a seducing project for him because of the intellectual challenge and the team work. To see the evolves of the project all summer long was very grateful. He enjoys also all the new skills acquired during this work.

Raphael is just like the other in his ninth semester at the ESBS. Originally from a math physics and chemistry curriculum he chose the ESBS for his international orientation and the synthetic biology approach of biotechnology. In order to obtain further biological background knowledge and skills, he decided to interrupt his curriculum to perform two six months internships in two different labs before continuing ESBS and joining the iGEM team.

Also known as Reno carré (Reno square) he tends to be famous for his experiments on the lack of sleep on himself. As some of his fellows, he is in the third year of ESBS, after having intensively studied Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and even more for 2 years in Classe Prépa. Since that time, he has been a MATLAB freak, coding some cool stuff you can see on his youtube channel (for instance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm0qQlzh0hw) and earns his living (sushis are quite expensive) by doing clinical trials. He got interested in Synthetic Biology quite early, and more especially with the iGEM competition. He originally got the idea of engineering a controllable protease which was the basis of our project and is really glad that others were as excited and motivated about it as him.

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Thea started her studies at the Humboldt University Berlin with the Bachelor program of Biophysics. As the trinational conception and organization of the ESBS captivated her, she left the German capital after finishing the 4th semester and went to Strasbourg to continue with the diploma course in Biotechnology. In the current last year of her studies she decided to specialize in Synthetic Biology and to take part of the iGEM competition. Behind the basic idea of iGEM she was attracted of the opportunity to work independently without limitations in creativity. She is very satisfied with the theme her team chose, the role and functioning of photoreceptors fascinate her since the early beginning of her studies. In the future she wants to continue within this field; for her diploma thesis she would like to work with vertebrate photoreceptors.

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Yves has just begun his first year of thesis in micro-electronics in the InESS (Institut d'Electronique du Solide et des Systèmes) laboratory in Strasbourg. This thesis is on the border between engineer sciences and biotechnologies. Its main objective is to structure the conception's flow in synthetic biology. The collaboration with biotechnologists is fundamental for him. He thinks that the iGEM competition is a very interesting experience of this kind of collaboration in an international team.

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Maria Zeniou graduated as a molecular biologist in 2002. Her PhD project included genetic studies of an X-linked inherited disorder and functional studies on the protein kinase whose loss of function leads to this disease. After her PhD, she performed a four-year post-doc in molecular and cellular biology. Within this period, she studied the roles and the regulation of lipid modifying enzymes during the process of regulated hormone exocytosis from neuroendocrine cells. In 2007, she joined the Strasbourg University as an assistant professor and since 2008 she participates to the iGEM teams of the Ecole Supérieure de Biotechnology de Strasbourg (ESBS) as an instructor. The aim of her current research project is to better understand the physiopathology of gliomas.

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Morgan Madec was born in 1980. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in microelectronics from the University Louis Pasteur (ULP), Strasbourg, France, in 2003 and 2006 respectively. From 2003 to 2006, he was with the Laboratoire de Physique et Application des Semi-Conducteurs (PHASE), ULP Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques, Strasbourg, where he prepared a Ph.D. thesis on the design, the simulation and the characterization of optical processors in order to speed up image reconstruction in the medical field.
He is currently a Professor Associate with the Institut d’Électronique du Solide et des Systèmes, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg and teaches electronics in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Physique de Strasbourg, University of Strasbourg.
His research interests include compact modeling of integrated microsensors (Hall-effect sensor, photodiode ...). Since 2008, he collaborates with a team of the Laboratoire d’Innovation Therapeutique. The aim of this work is to put the experience in microelectronics system design to good use in synthetic biology.

ESBS - Ecole Superieure de Biotechnologie de Strasbourg

The three-year curriculum in Biotechnology is organized by the “Upper Rhine Universities” in Freiburg, Basel, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg. Students from France, Germany and Switzerland receive an interdisciplinary and intensive, trilingual education in biotechnology. Most of the lectures take place at the École Supérieure de Biotechnologie de Strasbourg (ESBS) in Strasbourg. Intensive laboratory courses and internships are offered by the universities Basel, Freiburg and Karlsruhe.The languages for lectures and exams are French, German and English. Students for this program are selected after successful completion of two years of undergraduate education in sciences or engineering at a university or an equivalent institution.The degree obtained in this program is completed within 6 semesters. Each of the four partner universities is responsible for part of the program, according to their special strengths in research, resulting in a diverse program covering a wide spectrum of current research. All aspects of biotechnology are covered, from molecular biology to microbiology, bioprocess engineering and biocomputing. Lectures in patent law, economics and professional language courses complete the program. In the third year, students can focus on specialized areas, such as bioproduction or bioinformatics.

European by nature and international by design, the University's strengths and assets stem from its active involvement in virtually every discipline comprising the current body of knowledge. As a young university founded on an age-old tradition, it strives to attain cross-disciplinarity so that this mixing fosters new research opportunities and produces courses that meet society's need. The international dimension is fundamental for the University of Strasbourg and thanks to the world wide reputation of its research teams, built on excellence and efficiency, it emerges among Europe's foremost research universities. Each of the University's main academic fields of instruction is based upon research sections that are the driving force of the institution, with over 2,600 professors and 2,000 staff. The Technology Transfer Office, one of the very first developed in a French university, strives to promote the work of the researchers and facilitate partnerships with economic and institutional stakeholders. An essential player in the promotion of scientific and technical culture, the University interfaces with its host city, Strasbourg. Solidly anchored in the European Higher Education Area, the University of Strasbourg, a beating heart of the Alsatian metropolis with its 41,000 students, has the potential to face the challenging international competition.