Prof. Dr. van Dongen supported and advised us with our side project in plant growing to show the difference between fertilizer with and without phosphate. He provided us a cell in the university’s greenhouse and gave us advice on how to grow the plants and what elements we can use to substitute phosphate in the fertilizer. Without his help, we would not have been able to create our time-lapse video of plant growth. We would like to thank him for this.
Dr. Drepper supported our team with a lot of information about PBPs and the possibilities to realize a process with them. In several meetings, he answered our questions and helped us to plan the use of a photosensitizer. We got also some advice from him on the evaluation of our results. Moreover, he re recommended experts for interviews to discuss our results from a different point of view. For his valuable advice and help, we thank him on behalf of the entire team.
With Dr. Krauss we had a very important supervisor for our team. At the beginning, he gave us instructions on the different PBPs that come into question and how to implement the whole idea. He introduced us to some PBPs and the approach with light. For this we were able to visit the research center FZ Jülich and see our protein in virtual reality. Ulrich Krauss helped us with problems in the evaluation of our results and provided us some tips for cell disruption. We would like to thank him for his time and all the answers to our questions.
Dr. Mayer was our expert for phosphate binding proteins. With her we discussed the different possibilities of usage in sewage treatment plants. She gave us useful advice for further experiments to review possible conditions for application and encouraged us to try other sources for phosphate recycling.
Prof. Möglich was one of our expert contacts for the evaluation of our results of the optogenetic approach. We discussed future applications and ideas for improvement with him.
Prof. Dr. Rother advised us and recommended beads for the protein immobilization. She also supported us with protocols on how to use the beads and how to test the binding efficiency with an assay. For the switchable proteins she had crucial tips for us on the manipulation of the proteins with light and temperature. To evaluate our results, Professor Rother recommended experts for us to interview. For her much-appreciated continuous efforts we would like to thank her.
Prof. Dr. Schäfer is deputy director of Erftverband. With him we discussed the meaning of phosphate in sewage plants and how phosphate is removed nowadays. He gave comments to our project idea and how it may be used economically in sewage plants.
Prof. Dr. Wintgens and Jan Hendrik Ehm gave us advice for our storytelling and the possibilities of the application of polyphosphate. With them, we evaluated the usage of sewage water from treatment plants or from the food industry.
Marian helped us with proofreading of the designed genes and vectors.
Jens was an important supporter for our team. We got our cells for genetically evolution from him and some assistance to PCR. With all our questions to work with the modified cells and in the lab of the Institute of Biotechnology, we got answers and help.
Together with Dr. Singh, Dr. Cordero supported us with help in gene design and PCR. He helped us with the Gibson assembly and the QuikChange method.
For all questions regarding the experiments on the detection of phosphate and the production of polyphosphate, we could get advice from Alex. He supported us with protocols for the Phosfinity assay, polyphosphate production and gave us some tips for the evaluation of our experimental data. We would like to thank him for all his time and answering all our questions.
Jana helped us with the assay to detect the binding of phosphate to the proteins. She provided us with important tips to the implementation and evaluation of the Phosfinity assay.
Ursula Holter was always there for us. We could ask her all our questions about lab work, and she took the time to help and encourage us not to give up. We would like to thank her for all this time.
Dr. Maaßen gave us an introduction to one of the labs.
Dr. Ruff was very supportive of our team in various lab tasks. She answered our questions about the selection of competent cells and how to use them best in cultivation. Moreover, she helped us with proofreading of the designed genes before ordering them. We got from her some advice on how to control the transformation and to evaluate the PCR.
From Niklas we got some advice on optimizing the recombinant expression of the designed proteins and codon optimization. He supported us with proofreading and correction of the optimized and designed genes.
From Christian Simons we got the safety briefing for the S1 lab of the Institute for Biotechnology.
Dr. Singh gave us instructions on how to design primers and showed us the Gibson assembly and the QuikChange method. We also got help from him with the sequencing of the constructed vectors.
Sarah supported us with different aspects of cell disruption and isolation of the target protein. She gave us an introduction to the ultrasonic device and helped us with the protocols for isolation and using the beads for immobilization.
Dr. Zimmermann gave us the safety briefing for the S1 lab in the Institute for Applied Microbiology.
We want to thank all members of the labs for their help and advice in making our project a success.
Brigitta helped us to plan our plant experiment. She provided the seeds and prepared the cell in the greenhouse for us.
From Nicole we got support with the medium and fertilizer for comparing the plant growth. With her experience in creating time-lapse films, she helped us plan the timing for our pictures.
We contacted Udo Kosfeld because of some questions about the electric feasibility of our hardware project. With just one little idea of him, he changed the implementation of our project. He gave us advice on realizing the illumination and some other aspects to simplify the project.
Katharina provided us with some information about important aspects of a bioreactor and parts that are essential. She gave us ideas which improvements we could implement or build for universal applications.
We want to thank the “Studiwerkstatt Aachen” for providing us the workshop and tools for our hardware project.
With Stefan we talked about different ways to stir a bioreactor. He introduced us to Udo Kosfeld from the electrical workshop and some engineers from the mechanical workshop.
Jannis helped us with our promotion video. He was our second editor and made the sound recording for the German version of the video.
Pierre shot the video for us. He helped us with some final planning of the script and was open to all our implementations. We want to thank him for the great collaboration.
Sam did the voice over for our promo video. We want to thank him for his wonderful implementations of our ideas and text for the video.
Linda took the drone shoot for our promotion video. We want to thank her for her time and tolerance to all our ideas and changes during the shooting.
Hannah helped us with all our questions about fundraising, banking organization and communication with sponsors. We want to thank her for all this time.
Marie was the team leader of last year’s team. She introduced us to the whole iGEM competition with all the deadlines and important facts. We could come to her with all our questions. We want to thank her for this great support.
Designing the various webpages for our project would not have been possible without good advise. Many thanks to Frithjof for helping us with the technical website layout.
Malte gave us a comprehensive introduction to the IT work of iGEM as a computer scientist from Team Aachen 2021. Without him and his work, which we were allowed to use to a large extent, some aspects of our project would not have been implementable in time.
Many thanks to Clemens for his immense work on the wiki as computer scientist of last years competition team from Aachen and the permission to reuse much of it for our project.
Tim Riedling is a farmer from Aachen. He described his day life and the usage of phosphate in farming with all the guidelines. We discussed with him the possible applications of our polyphosphate in agriculture.
With all questions about fundraising and financial organization, Ms. Kropp supported us and managed our university bank account. She helped us a lot to realize our trip to Paris and with all other banking matters. For all this support and her time, we would like to thank her.
Jeannette Schwerdt was our contact person at proRWTH, the funding association of RWTH Aachen University. We want to thank her for the cooperation and help with fundraising.
For the introduction to the iGEM competition, all answers to our questions during the year and the IT-Infrastructure such as the Wiki, we want to thank the whole iGEM Team Aachen 2021.
We want to thank iGEM Team BITS Goa for their great Wiki-Starter-Pack. Without that, we would have had a much harder time finishing our wiki.
We want to thank Hannah a lot for designing our team logo and her help with the project logo.
We would like to thank Philipp for the portrait pictures and the group picture of our team.