"

From 2012.igem.org

The members of the team come from different schools and universities:

• Evry university, Master mSSB (Synthetic and systemic biology)
• Versailles Saint Quentin university(Biology)
• Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University (Philosophy)
• Ecole Normale Supérieure(Engineering)
• Ecole Centrale Paris (Engineering)
• Sup'Biotech Paris (Biotechnology)
• ESIEE Management (Biotechnology)
• Epita (Computer Science)

Our environment: a key location for synthetic biology in France

Environment

The Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology (iSSB):

iSSB is located on the Genopole® in Evry, host team in the summer. The iSSB is a laboratory at the University of Evry and CNRS, supported by Genopole®. It is a multidisciplinary environment where collaborate physicists, chemists, computer scientists and biologists. It is also the laboratory who founded and directs the Master 2 Systems Biology Synthetic and MSSB. This master of avant-garde, unique in France, offers courses provided by researchers at the forefront of their field, which guaranteed training in the state of the art techniques used in synthetic biology.

Collaborations

La Paillasse: The Paris community Lab for Biotech

La Paillasse is a physical and web platform for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, researchers and entrepreneurs that fosters open-science, debates and hands-on practice of Biotechnology. La Paillasse is also the first and largest community laboratory for Biotech in France. This year, La Paillasse and some of its members are joining the team of Evry to participate in the design and the realization of one of the coolest iGEM project ever: The french froggies. During the summer, La Paillasse have hosted and organized meet-ups between citizens and the iGEM team for explaining the stakes of our iGEM projects and of Synthetic Biology in general. More in the Human practice section. Visit our website!

Lab team

Tristan Cerisy Master 2, mSSB, Evry university I did my bachelor at Evry’s University, in Bioinformatics. During that year when Jean-loup Faulon presented iGem and synthetic biology, I found it very interesting. I wanted to participate with iGem from my bachelor. Because no team existed yet close to our university, William and I decided to create this team in November and we looked for interested people, funding and projects. I am very excited to be involved in this project with this wonderful team.	Jorgelindo Da Veiga Moreira Master 1, AIV, Diderot University I’m a bachelor graduated student from a Parisian engineering school. I look forward to a Master degree in biotechnology. I discovered synthetic biology mainly through conferences and I’ve been immediately fascinated by this new biological approach to work on living systems. iGEM is a good opportunity for me to start in this field and to acquire experience for my future engineering carrier.
Carolina Gallo Lopez Master 2, mSSB, Evry university Having acquired a background in biology and a first year of master in “Genomics, Cells, Development and Evolution” at the University of Paris Sud 11, I started to be interested in systems biology since my last year of bachelor and decided on getting involved in this approach during both my second year of master and my master’s thesis. I am participating in the iGEM competition as it allows me to combine experimental work with theoretical modelling. I am keen to learn not only different biological techniques and modeling approaches but also to learn from my teammates and other iGEM teams.	Tiffany Souterre 5th year, Sup'Biotech Paris After a BTS in Biotechnology, I went to Sup'Biotech, an engineering school in Biotechnology. For 6 years, I have been studying DNA manipulation, bacteria transformation... but it is only recently that I have heard about Synthetic Biology. It is such a promising and interesting field but requires multidisciplinary skills. I am eager to increase my knowledge to be able to work at the interface of biology and computer science. I discovered iGEM thanks to the 2009 Sup'Biotech team and I have no doubt it will be a great opportunity to learn more, gain experience and hopefully bring a modest contribution to Synthetic Biology.
William Rostain Master 2, mSSB, Evry university I did my bachelor in Edinburgh university, and came into contact with synthetic biology when I participated iGem with the 2010 Edinburgh team. My background is mostly molecular microbiology and biotechnology, but during iGEM I came into contact with modelling and how it could serve biology, thanks to the great modellers in our team. I decided to participate in mSSB in order to learn some more about modelling and programming so I could work more closely with computer people later :)	Cyrille Pauthenier Student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and member of mSSB I participated in the 2011 iGEM Paris-Bettencourt team who was a finalist and won the prize for best presentation at the European semi-final, and then sweet sixteen at the MIT. I've studied this year in the mSSB master, I'm now about to start a PhD in metabolic engineering at Jean-Loup Faulon's laboratory at iSSB.
Karine Chauris 5th year, Sup'Biotech Paris I’m currently in my final year at Sup'Biotech Paris, a school of biotechnology, and my professional aim is to work on bioproduction processes. I’m attracted, since I was young, by all the possibilities of DNA manipulation and discovered synthetic biology with the first synthetic bacteria. Why did I join iGEM? It's a unique chance to participate in a challenging and concrete project.	Joachim Eeckhout 4th year, Sup'Biotech Paris I'm in my fourth year at Sup'Biotech, an engeenering school in biotechnologies. Like many others, I have been amazed by the controversy surrounding the publication of Craig Venter and his synthetic bacterium "Synthia". Since then, I am very interested to acquire expertise in this field and the iGEM competition is a chance for me to be part of this new science.
Raphael Ferreira 1st year, AIV I've currently finished my license (Bachelor) in biotechnology and I'm about to join the AIV (Interdisciplinary approaches to life science) Masters. I discovered synthetic biology with the Craig Venter's paper (released in may 2010). After that, my school gave me a 5 month research & information processing project on synthetic biology. Through this project I've discovered the iGEM competition and the opportunities surrounding the emergence of this science filed. Enrolling in an iGEM team will give me a sight of how synthetic biology experimentations are, and also, to work with people who are interested in this science too.	Pierre Yves Nogue 2nd year Biology degree, Versaille Saint-Quentin University Biologist student in Paris university, I've discovered the synthetic biology when I've joined "La Paillasse", a biohackspace in Paris. In the same time, I've learned about the existence of the Igem competition, and decided to join the Evry team after some meetings. Indeed, iGEM looks for me as a very good opportunity to work on really interesting subjects in an encouraging work atmosphere, and I've found all this advantages in the Evry team!
Hafez El-Sayyed Master 2, mSSB, Evry university I did my bachelor's degree and my first Master year In Beirut Arab University, Lebanon, In Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. I came across the term synthetic Biology on the mSSB Website and then started doing some research about the Synthetic Biology topic. Now I want to be part of this wave of unorthodox and ingenious attempts to help create better things around us. I COULDN'T BE Prouder to be part of IGEM EVRY 2012.

Modeling team

Artémis Llamosi 3rd year, Ecole Centrale Paris After completing a Master in engineering at École Centrale Paris and a research master in applied mathematics for biology at Paris 6 University, I am to start a PhD thesis on real-time control of biological systems on microfluidics chips. For many years interested in the relation between maths and biology, I discovered synthetic biology in 2011 through its connection to systems biology and immediately got "infected". My expertise being mostly on theoretical aspects, I enrolled in iGEM to get closer to the wetlab and apply my scholar knowledge to real life problems.

Pierre Parutto 5th year, Epita I am curently in 5th year at the engineering school Epita and specialized in scientific computations. I am interested in biology since high school and more especially in the links between biological systems and my speciality: computer science. After all a cell can be seen as a kind of computer, as seen in the name "genetic code". I learned about the IGEM comptetition when I discovered the synthetic biology field in an article in Nature a few years ago. Since then I wanted to participate to the comptetition but never had the opportunity. I bring to the team my programming and engineering skills and hope to learn a lot from biologist in the lab.

Iryna Nikolayeva 2nd year, Telecom Sud Paris In place of my last year of engineering school, Telecom SudParis, I will be doing the mSSB (master in systematic and synthetic biology). I've got useful computer science and maths skills for modeling and making the wiki. I imagine that mixing technologies and life science can lead to exciting inventions and discoveries. The iGEM seemed to me a nice opportunity to get to know the synthetic biology background and interact with students that are interested in it!

Mohamed Machat Master 2, mSSB, Evry university I am a civil engineer from Tunisia. My penchant for genetics has started since my first biology lectures in college. However, the first opportunity that I got to go into this field showed up in 2011, when I was admissible to join the ISSB master program. So I left my engineer job and have moved to France. The adventure of iGem looks to me a good step towards my career ambition: invest my mathematics and mechanics background into oncology!!

Human practice

Clément Marquet

Master 2, Philosophy, Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne University

I'm completing a master of philosophy of science at Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne University. I discovered synthetic biology about two years ago in a popular scientific review and was struck by the ambition of the field and the diversity of disciplines involved in it. I was seduced by the special place that laboratories such as Synberc give to social sciences and started thinking about some epistemological questions that could be raised by Feynman’s word on knowing and making or by the convergence of biology and technology. I saw in the iGEM contest an opportunity to discover scientific work from the inside and to experiment how philosophical reflections could get practical and debated inside a scientific group.

Instructors

Dr. Alfonso Jaramillo Group leader of the Synth-Bio team at iSSB Contact After a PhD in theoretical physics, he was converted to synthetic biology for over 10 years. He gained international recognition in this field. He is now the team director of the Bio-Synth iSSB, working on the design, synthesis and characterization of biological regulatory artificial pathways. He is also one of the main teachers of the mSSB (synthetic and systematic biology master). Alfonso Jaramillo will be our main supervisor. He led Valencia iGEM team in 2006, and participated in the supervision of Valencia's and Paris' teams.

Thomas Landrain PhD candidate in Jaramillo's Group at iSSB. Co-founder and President of La Paillasse Contact Ex-student of the Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris, he is now a PhD student at iSSB in Alfonso Jaramillo's Group where he is developing new technologies, using the properties of RNA molecules, for analyzing and controlling cell fate in bacteria. He is also the co-founder and president of the first community lab for biotechnology in France "La Paillasse", affiliated with the DIYbio world movement. In 2007, he was one of the founder and participants of the first french iGEM team that became finalist of the competition and received the first prize for foundational research.

Dr. Andrew Tolonen Group leader at Genoscope Contact After a PhD in genetics and genomics of cyanobacteria at MIT and a post-doc in the team of George Church at Harvard, one of the largest synthetic biology laboratories in the world, he is now a researcher at Genoscope in Evry. His work focuses on the manufacture of biofuels by cyanobacteria. Andrew Tolonen attends the our team in the selection and construction of the project. He participated in the supervision of Harvard iGEM teams during his post-PhD.

Dr. Nicolas Pollet Group leader of the Metamorphosis team at iSSB Contact After a PhD in developmental physiology at INSERM, he was a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellow at the German Cancer Research Institute in Heidelberg. He is now a CNRS senior scientist, head of the Metamorphosys group at iSSB working in genomics and systems biology using the Xenopus frog model. Nicolas Pollet will participate to IGEM as supervisor for the first time this year.

Advisors

Anna Młynarczyk Doctoral student in proteomics at the university of Evry She obtained a Master in Biotechnology at the Westpomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin in Poland. During her university studies she has conducted several training courses abroad (UEVE, TEPAK Cyprus) and in Poland which made ​​her want to do research. Anna also performs the tutoring, which allows her to develop teaching skills.

Dr. Aurore THELIE PostDoc at Dr. Pollet's lab After a molecular biology training and a PhD in Reproductive Biology at INRA, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Medicine (IBMM) in Belgium where she discovered the Xenopus model and all opportunity of study it offers. In 2012 she joined the Metamorphosys group at iSSB to study motoneurons and construct Xenopus transgenic lines using synthetic biology tools.