Mathilda Bertges

Our Songbird

Mathilda is a Master’s student in biology and is particularly interested in developmental biology. She enjoys spending her days at iGEM working in the lab, but also communicating with experts to exchange ideas and get feedback on our project.

My highlight during iGEM

Winning/losing the daily game of lab territory conquest.

Niels Geipel

Man for the Extrusion

Niels is a Bachelor’s student of biology. His interests include biochemistry, synthetic biology, cell biology and microscopy. At iGEM, he mainly worked on lipid-based nanocarriers, using various processing methods and measurement techniques. Outside the lab, he contacted experts and reached out to sponsors.

My highlight during iGEM

I will never forget the fun and experiences we shared during this short time of the project. The days are just packed :)

Lucille Gutzmer

Our Excel-ent Organizer

Lucy is a Bachelor’s student of biology. Her interests lie in neurobiology and synthetic biology. She spends her days at iGEM, mostly working on our liposomal carriers. When she’s not in the lab, she is probably organizing protocols and deadlines or drinking coffee.

My highlight during iGEM

The excitement of the first lab days, when we learned to do basic stuff on our own. Doing a gel electrophoresis seemed like the most difficult thing, and then it worked! And dancing together after a long lab day.

Marina Hammerl

Our Metalhead

Marina is a Master’s student of biology and is especially interested in the signaling networks of developmental biology. She spends most of her time during iGEM designing plasmids and working in the lab. Apart from that, she also enjoys engaging with experts and finding ways to implement their feedback into our project.

My highlight during iGEM

Beating Emil in a one-on-one match of table football.

Nicole Kucera

Our Eternal Optimist

Nicole is a Bachelor’s student in biology and particularly interested in synbio and cell biology. At iGEM you will mainly find her in the lab working with lipids and cell cultures. The rest of the time she creates engaging content for social media and design.

My highlight during iGEM

I love goofing around with the team members and listening to their random everyday stuff <3

Emil Kozma

Prankster

Emil is a Bachelor’s student of biology. His interests include biochemistry, synthetic biology and bioinformatics together with web design and development. He is passionate about the interdisciplinary aspects of biology and thus likes to work on experiments in the lab and tinkering around with some code at home. At iGEM, he mainly worked on OMVs as transport vehicles and programming the wiki.

My highlight during iGEM

Witnessing Nafis’ love for every single E. coli bacterium because he feels like they are his children.

Nafis Madapalli

The little nocturnal Architect

Nafis is a Bachelor’s student of biology. He is obsessed with immunology and synthetic biology, encompassing everything from nanoparticles to outer membrane vesicles. He was heavily invested in the research of outer membrane vesicles with a special emphasis on improving their production, specificity & biosafety.

My highlight during iGEM

Everything. From positive results that arose because I had forgotten the plates in the incubator to losing my mind with Jan trying to do a 10th grade math problem.

Leonie Mungenast

Sun Addict

Leonie is a Bachelor’s student of biology. She is passionate about biotechnology and, of course, synthetic biology. Experimenting in the wet lab is her guilty pleasure.

My highlight during iGEM

I loved the daily coffee break in the sun and how we won the bio olympic games.

Liv Neumann

Tea Lover

Liv is a Master’s student of biology with a special interest in genetics and translational biology. She enjoys spending her days at iGEM working on our liposomal delivery system and coding our wiki.

My highlight during iGEM

I loved getting to know the team members over the months and learning new things through them, whether in the lab or outside of it. I also really enjoyed our daily coffee breaks in the Mensa.

Laura Pasman

Our Good Vibes Manager

Laura is a Bachelor’s student in biology and is especially interested in biochemistry, neurobiology and synbio. She spends her time at iGEM dealing with OMVs and Human Practices. During breaks from the lab, she also loves being creative by directing the videos.

My highlight during iGEM

Doing handstands during breaks and actually seeing progress happen. Definitely wasn’t expecting that, haha. Credits go to Nicole and Emil :)

Ivana Rozić

Our Coffee Enthusiast

Ivana is a Bachelor’s student of computer science. She is interested in neuro engineering and passionate about finding the best cafes in Freiburg. Therefore you will always find her with pessimistic motivation, a big cup of coffee in front of her laptop.

My highlight during iGEM

I really enjoyed our internal discussion about whether we should use Julia or Python as coding languages and of course our 5 min (x20) coffee breaks.

Isabelle Tipp

Our Karaoke Queen

Isabelle is a Bachelor’s student in biology. Her favourite fields are plant physiology and cell biology. She is passionate about graphic design and spends most of her days cloning in the lab or coding the wiki.

My highlight during iGEM

Singing sessions in the lab with Mathilda.

Alexej Wolosski

Chef de Cuisine

Alexej is a Master’s student in biology and enjoys diving into the fascinating world of neuroscience, especially in the field of nervous diseases. He was euphoric when it came to contacting potential sponsors, introducing them to our project and providing the needed lab material. He also helped keep everything running smoothly in the lab through his work in the lab safety team.

My highlight during iGEM

I was thrilled to see how supportive everyone, including sponsors and discussion partners, was of us and our project.

Jan Zielinski

Our Ice-Cream Fanatic

Jan is a Master’s student in biology with a particular interest in biotechnology and plant science. At iGEM, he spends his days in the lab coming up with new controls for every experiment we plan and convincing our bacteria to grow (or die) faster.

My highlight during iGEM

Frantically trying to inoculate 28 overnight cultures at the same time without thawing all our glycerol stocks and setting off our -80°C freezer alarm. In the end, all of our cultures grew, so it was definitely a success.

Dr. Nicole Gensch

Principal Investigator

Nicole is a biologist, a core facility manager and one of the PIs of the team. Nicole is passionate about her work and consistently available to support and motivate the team through the challenges of the research process.

My highlight during iGEM

A highlight of my experience during iGEM has been witnessing students transform their initial ideas into fully executed experiments.

Dr. Pavel Salavei

Principal Investigator

Pavel is a dedicated biochemist and Core Facility Leader; he is proud to serve as one of the PIs for the iGEM Freiburg team. Pavel believes that the heart of innovation lies in collaboration, and he is committed to fostering an environment where ideas can be nurtured and developed into groundbreaking experiments.

My highlight during iGEM

I’m here to support our team every step of the way, ensuring that we push the boundaries of what’s possible in synthetic biology.

Melita Dyla

The Phantom Supporter

Melita is a medical student with a passion for impacting others. Known for her unique ability to apply gentle pressure without seeming forceful, she keeps the team on track by reminding them of the days left until the wiki freeze. She appears when the team needs her most, before disappearing into the shadows once again.

My highlight during iGEM

I loved stepping in during the tough moments. Witnessing the project come to life while being there to support and listen made the experience even more meaningful to me.

Anne Frederiksen

Our Question Collector

Anne is pursuing a master’s degree in biology, specializing in immunology and virology. Besides writing her master’s thesis, she is troubleshooting her recipe for Danish “rugbrød.”

My highlight during iGEM

Every time the iGEMers correct and improve my suggestions for experiments, I can feel their motivation and the progress they make. It motivates me in return!

Leon-Samuel Icking

Head of Damage Control

Leon is finishing his Master’s degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics (hopefully soon) but his heart beats Synthetic Biology. He’s a big fan of all kinds of laboratory methods because data is queen. Don’t ask him how many side projects he has going at once.

My highlight during iGEM

Definitely not the 4 hour meetings. Maybe the memes? Maybe winning the Bio-Olympics at the faculty day? Maybe the car karaoke on the way to the Münster Meet-up? Maybe seeing the members grow confident with their lab work? Too many to choose from…

Anna Indricane

Within a Call’s Reach

Anna is Liberal Arts and Sciences student, majoring in Life Sciences. Her current fascination is brain organoids as model systems of neurodevelopment in health and disease but her true long-lasting love is espresso.

My highlight during iGEM

Every time I saw Laura calling on WhatsApp: wouldn’t know who will actually be on the phone but sure thing it is something about western blot.

Konstantin Jaeschke

OMV Herder

Konstantin is a Bachelor’s student of biology with a love for developmental biology! As it is the principal discipline of biology with the perfect blend of cell and signal biology, genetics, biochemistry and yes, even modeling.

My highlight during iGEM

I loved standing in the lab being blasted by AC while others outside were melting in 33 °C.

Yara Jenin Jamal

Watermelon Lover

Yara is studying molecular medicine in her 2nd semester (B.Sc). Her favorite field in biology is genetic engineering. She is also interested in art, graphic design and social media.

My highlight during iGEM

I enjoyed getting to know iGEM from the supervisor’s side and being able to accompany the team on their journey.

Jonas Pleyer

All Things Software

Jonas studied physics and is now doing his PhD in the group of Christian Fleck. He works on agent-based simulations for multicellular systems. He likes coding and spending time with his cats.

My highlight during iGEM

Coming from a completely different background, I value the greater understanding which I have gotten from attending lots of meetings where I do not understand anything.

Kevin Postol

Herbal Sorcerer

Kevin is a dedicated biology student working towards his Bachelor’s degree. He has a genuine curiosity to explore different perspectives and areas to deepen his understanding of the big picture. His interests are very diverse, ranging from medicine and coding to something as simple and beautiful as identifying flowers in a meadow.

My highlight during iGEM

My highlight was to see that the cells really die. In other words, when the AMP worked.

Michael Spädt

Mr. Dinner Dilemma

Michael is finishing his bachelor’s degree in biology and he is fascinated by creative ideas and nifty ways to solve issues. Naturally, SynBio is the place to be.

My highlight during iGEM

The night when we watched Dune and made a drinking game out of it.

Amelie Stange

Pessimistic Realist

Amelie is a biology student with a passion for genetics and synthetic biology. In her opinion, the genetic code is the greatest gift nature gave us to understand life and to solve our problems in a sustainable and clever way.

My highlight during iGEM

Everytime a new piece of the puzzle fell into place to get us closer to the complete picture. Whether it was a new cloned plasmid or an experiment that finally delivered the missing data, every small success was my highlight.

Hannah Swientek

Occasional Hustler

Hannah is currently a bachelor’s student in biology, desperately trying to make up for the lost credit points from past semesters. In addition to that, she has developed a passion for sweet and hot drinks of all kinds.

My highlight during iGEM

Seeing each team member grow individually, while also witnessing all of us grow together as a team. Sticking through the hardships together was so worth it, especially when considering the highlights. And, of course, taking loooots of breaks to talk to one another.