Meet the team behind the project and learn about everyone's contributions.
Tasks: Safety, Other, Project Administration, Fundraising
Specific tasks: Dr. Cai was the chief PI of our iGEM group. He was the primary point of contact for our safety-related concerns, and provided insight into the direction and maintainance of the experimental work. Additionally, Dr. Cai organized the Westlake iGEM fund under his own lab, which we used to book machines, order reagents, and make other necessary purchases.
Tasks: Project Administration, Fundraising, Other
Specific tasks: Ruochen was one of the project advisors for us, as a PhD student who had been involved in the Westlake iGEM team for the past two years. Ruochen gave us advice not only about the feasibility of our project, but also the timeline of our work, how to develop an effective story, and the other general requirements for a successful iGEM season. Without Ruochen, we wouldn’t have any clear direction about how to transform a project into an iGEM project.
Tasks: Conceptualization, Background Research, Other
Specific tasks: Yishan was a member of last year's iGEM team, and she served as an advisor for the team, being the student leader of the group of four who generated the project idea. Additionally, Yishan provided insights into iGEM related responsibilities and practices, drawing from her own experiences, and helped to keep the team organized and informed when necessary.
Tasks: Safety, Conceptualization, Background Research, Project Administration, Notebook/record keeping, Investigation, Analysis, Data Curation
Specific tasks: Jiayu was one of the original four members who helped to design the content and ideas for the project, developing our knowledge about the different CRISPRa systems and their applications. As our Wet Lab Captain, she was responsible for the maintainance of safety in Lab Work, record keeping, and the management of work. Jiayu assisted in cell culture work, as well as some of the Western Blotting and analysis work for our initial data.
Tasks: Conceptualization, Analysis, Background Research, Investigation, Data Curation, Project Administration, Public Engagement, Wiki Coding, Visualization, Writing
Specific tasks: Joshua was the Team Captain for this year's Westlake iGEM project. He served as the intitial proposer of the project idea, and worked alongside the other three students to develop and refine the idea. Josh was responsible for organizing, planning, and distributing work for all experiments, and also participated in the experiments (including LNP synthesis and analysis, plasmid cloning/isolation, protein isolation, cell culture, and western blotting). Additionally, Josh was responsible for characterization of the new vectors and sgRNA on the iGEM Part Registry, the generation of the promotional videom and the content Engineering Success and Contribution sections of the Team Wiki. Lastly, Josh helped to promote the Westlake iGEM team and establish collaborations, serving as a representative at the CCiC conference and conducting interviews with Westlake PIs to aid in IHP work.
Tasks: Conceptualization, Background Research, Investigation, Safety, Visualization, Writing
Specific tasks: Shaun was one of the original four members to participate in the development of the project idea, being resposnible for looking at the safety requirements and practicality of the system, and writing the Wiki content about biosafety and security. Additionally, Shaun assisted with some of the work in isolating the plasmids for future transfection. Lastly, Shaun assisted with the development and editing of the team video (submitted October 15th).
Tasks: Project Administration, Public Engagement, Other, Writing
Specific tasks: Yuxuan was our Human Practice Captain, responsible for all of the Human Practice coordination done in the project. She lead a two week educational camp in Henan provice aimed at increasing awareness and knowledge reagrding the immune system, vaccines, and gene therapies that target the two. Additionally, Yuxuan was responsible for the development our team collaborations with a number of external and internal establushments. This includes other iGEM teams (such as that from ZJU), Representatives from Hangzhou People's First Hospital, and Westlake PIs like Dr. Dijin Xu and Dr. Dapeng Li. Additionally, Yuxuan was responsible for the development of the Human Practices Wiki material, and was instrumental in orgnaizing our roject to be more responsive to the knowledge we gainef from our HP experience.
Tasks: Analysis, Investigation, Background Research
Specific tasks: Da was primarily responsible for our LNP synthesis. Through reading articles, he helped to develop the synthesis protocol and composition for the LNPs, refining it an adapting it for optimal expression. Da also helped in running the Western Blot experiments, quantifying the protein expression and runnning the gels before imaging. Additionally, he served as a representative for the Westlake iGEM team at the CCiC conference, delivering a project presentation, and forming connections with other China-based iGEM groups attending the conference.
Tasks: Investigation, Project Administration, Visualization, Other
Specific tasks: Runwen, our Chief Financial Officer, was responsible for maintaining and organizing all aspects of our iGEM budget. SHe helped facilitate the communication between school administrators, iGEM personnel, and the team, organizing everything from flights to visa appointments, and ordering the necessary reagents for our experiments. Runwen was also one of our key designers for the project, helping to design posters and the team logo. However, Runwen also particpated in cell culture work, as one of our cell culture leaders, performing regular cell maintanance, as well as protein extractions and plasmid transfections.
Tasks: Investigation
Specific tasks: Jiacheng was one of the team members involved in project application and Cell Culture work. He particpated in discussion about project refinement, and helped to maintain experiments when other members of the team were not available.
Tasks: Background Research, Wiki Coding, Writing, Visualization, Analysis
Specific tasks: Luyao was one of the key dry lab interpreters, helping to parse and organize the data that we generated. She helped to generate the figures for western blot and flow cytometry readings, especially for our LNP synthesis process. Additionally, Luyao helped write the section for inclusivity in the project, and was key in shaping the idea that our project could serve underdeveloped communities as a potential stand in for the current lack of treatments available.
Tasks: Conceptualization, Investigation, Background Research, Project Administration, Writing, Wiki Coding
Specific tasks: Wenlong served as the key editor of our iGEM Wiki, helping to design the pages, format the content, and review all relevant information. He was also one of the four original members to help design the project, repsonsible for examining viral pathways and examining key sites for interventions, which was invaluable in our later work. Finally, Wenlong participated in the cell culture work, helping to start and maintain the initial cell culture room.
Tasks: Investigation
Specific tasks: Yidong was one of the team members involved in project application and Cell Culture work. He particpated in discussion about project refinement, and helped to maintain experiments when other members of the team were not available.
Tasks: Analysis, Investigation, Notebook/record keeping, Data Curation, Project Administration, Safety
Specific tasks: Yixiao was our Chief Cell Culture Captain, being the person in charge of all cell-culuture related inquiries and experiements. He maintained our cell culture, and was in charge of scheduling the experiments based on cellular health and availability for our work. Additionally, Yixiao conducted many of the pilot experiments to examine the basic components of our project, including the impacts of Doxycycline on cellular health and the transfection efficiency of our Hydrogel LNP system, identiyfing optimal ratios and transfection times. Lastly, Yixiao served as a key member is experimental design, suggesting revisions and new methods based on the raodblocks that the project frequently hit.
Tasks: Analysis, Conceptualization, Background Research, Investigation, Data Curation, Project Administration, Safety
Specific tasks: Dr. Mao is one of the two primary undergraduate biology lab professors at Westlake, and she become the primary supervisor for all lab work. Dr. Mao assisted in tje scheduling of experiments, the ordering of reagents, and generation of data across all aspects of the project. Additionally, Dr. Mao was one of the key players in the concept development phase of the project, taking the ideas and solutions posited by us students and asking questions that challenged us to think deeper and solve problems with our design. Without Dr. Mao, there would be no project at all.
Tasks: Conceptualization, Other
Specific tasks: Dr. Xu was our chief advisor when it came to any immune related inquiries. As we were developing our system, Dr. Xu provided us with guidance about choosing our targets, the pros and cons of each, and what strategies we might consider implementing in order to have a productive experimental plan and conclusive results.
Tasks: Conceptualization, Other
Specific tasks: Dr. Li was our chief advisor when it came to any pathogenesis related inquiries. As we were developing our system, Dr. Li provided us with guidance about the different areas to target in an antiviral therapy, the pros and cons of each, and what strategies we might consider implementing in order to have a productive experimental plan and conclusive results.
Tasks: Other
Specific tasks: Tsingke Bio was directly responsible for sequencing any and all plasmid constructs we had after transformation into bacteria to confirm correctness.
Tasks: Other
Specific tasks: GenScript provided us with the plasmid clonign services to swap out the TRE3G promoter (from the CMV promoter) in our pcDNA dCas9 plasmid. Additionally, after submitting our sgRNA sequences to them, GenScript synthesized and provided us with the sgRNAs themselves, ready for use in