Acknowledgements | iGEM Hamburg 2025

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who supported the iGEM Team Hamburg 2025 throughout the development of our project DeathCapTrap.

First and foremost, we thank our Principal Investigator Prof. Dr. Michael Kolbe and Secondary PI Dr. Mirko Himmel for their continuous guidance, scientific input, and encouragement. We are also sincerely grateful to our Advisors, Boy and Lennert, for their commitment, mentorship, and invaluable feedback during every stage of our work.

We would like to thank our collaborating and supporting institutions: University of Hamburg (UHH), Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Centre for Structural Systems Biology (CSSB), Hub for Crossdisciplinary Learning (HCL UHH), Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), the Liver Lab of the UKE, and the AG Grünewald (CSSB) for providing laboratory space, scientific infrastructure, and interdisciplinary support.

Our heartfelt thanks also go to the students of our international synthetic biology summer school—Annika, Ida, Emiko, Lilli, and Matyas—whose enthusiasm, dedication, and assistance in the lab made a significant contribution to our project.

We are immensely grateful to the experts who shared their knowledge and advice to help us refine both the scientific and ethical / safety aspects of our work: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Clara Schöder, Prof. Dr. Florian Eyer, Prof. Dr. Alejandro Rojas-Fernandez, Prof. Dr. Dominik Begerow, Dr. Waldemar Schäfer, Prof. Dr. Ario de Marco, Bettina Haberl, Dr. Dorothee Schwinge, Dr. Barbara Kutscher, Daniela Klug, Dr. Stefanie Iwersen-Bergmann, Prof. Dr. Roderich Süßmuth, and Dr. Jörg Kemkowski.

We further thank our software and computational biology experts Dr. Wolfgang Lugmayr, Dr. Frank Schluenzen, and Dr. Klara Kropivšek for their support in structural modeling, data analysis, and implementation of our dry-lab pipeline.

Finally, we express our sincere appreciation to our sponsors and partners: Becton Dickinson (BD), Thermo Fisher Scientific, Ratiolab, SnapGene, TeamGantt, Carl Roth, NanoHelix, ElabNext, Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), and Twist Bioscience for their generous contributions, licenses, and product support that made our research possible.

This project was realized through the combined effort of many passionate people and institutions. We are truly grateful for their belief in our vision and for helping us bring DeathCapTrap to life.

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