UBC Faculty Support
As this was our first year competing in the iGEM competition, the inception of our team was spearheaded by undergraduate students at UBC Okanagan but could not have been as successful without the steadfast support of professors from the IKB Faculty of Science and School of Engineering on our campus. Our team was supported throughout the duration of the competition for project feedback, Wet Lab training, Dry Lab advice and general management and funding support. To all, a sincere thank you!
DR. MITRA TABATABAEE
SESSIONAL LECTURER
Biology
Dr. Tabatabaee is one of our team's wonderful PIs. Dr. Mitra provided an immense level of support from initial
project ideation to microbiology techniques in lab. She really made us think like scientists.
We regularly met to provide progress updates, and she provided assistance in our promotional video
and local outreach for a local news channel.
Furthermore, Mitra was a guest speaker at our 2nd Meetup for the iGEM Phototroph Community,
speaking to teams overcoming roadblocks in research and attend the other events as well!
DR. THU-THUY DANG
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Chemistry
As an Advisor, Dr. Dang provided sets of micropipettes and Miniprep Reaction kits from the Dang Group. She also provided project advice and measurement guidance through several meetings with our team.
DR. MICHAEL DEYHOLOS
PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT HEAD
Biology
Dr. Deyholos assisted with initial project ideation and helped us get in contact with the rest of the Faculty and Biology Department as the Head. Furthermore, he graciously allowed us to use his lab in the fall for material space and experiments after our lab was required for teaching in the fall semester.
DR. TYLER DONNER
LABORATORY PROGRAM MANAGER Biology
Dr. Donner helped our team obtain lab space during the summer months as well as providing the necessary orientation for proper lab behaviour, biosafety and chemical safety. He advised our team to obtain certification for these from the Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) for our Wet Lab members.
ROSEMARY GARNER
LABORATORY PROGRAM MANAGER Biology
Rosemary provided our team with a lab orientation early on, discussing the importance of
biosafety and
chemical safety. She supported our team heavily during the summer in providing inventory
on materials
such as microscopes and a plate counter, other reagents used in our experiments.
She also assisted in providing lab supplies like slides and microscopes for our outreach
activities with
Let's Talk Science, iSTAND and club events!
DR. TANJA VOEGEL
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Biology
Dr. Voegel supported our team's educational outreach efforts on campus. She met with us to provide feedback on our Playdough Biobrick activity and assisted with gathering materials and booth setup, which we subsequently presented in a collaboration with Let's Talk Science.She also provided training for the use of the BRAES' molecular biology lab on our campus.
DR. TRUDY KAVANAGH
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF TEACHING
Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences
Dr. Kavanagh was always supporting our research group. She helped us get in contact with more faculty members and met with our team to learn about UBCO iGEM operations from the management and funding perspective, as way of better determining how to support us in the future!
DR. NOZOMU YACHIE
Director, Research and Associate Director
School of Biomedical Engineering
During our visit to UBC iGEM at our Vancouver campus, our co-Lead met with Dr. Yachie to pitch the project. He suggested we come up with alternate Wet Lab protocols if we were running short on time to validate our experiments, and suggestions for future side projects we can direct Life Bulb towards.
DR. ISAAC LI
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Chemistry
Dr. Li is one of our team's wonderful PIs. Dr. Li supported us early on in securing funding for UBCO iGEM from the Chemistry Department, as well as feedback on initial project ideation. We had several meetings with him throughout the season to provide progress updates and ensure we were on-track with deadlines.
DR. DON NGUYEN
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH AND TEACHING FELLOW
Chemistry
As an Instructor, Dr. Nguyen provided initial instructional feedback for our plasmid design process- including Benchling support, advice on Golden Gate troubleshooting, and provided measurement guidance. We met several times during this process to ensure our constructs were correctly designed.
DR. BRENDAN D'SOUZA
LECTURER
Biology
Dr. D'Souza graciously lent his support in feedback for project conceptualization and running extensive training sessions for plasmid extractions, digestions, transformation, and gel electrophoresis over a three week training period in molecular biology techniques for our Wet Lab members!
DR. SOHEIL MAHMOUD
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Dr. Mahmoud helped us with Wet Lab training in Miniprep Reaction kits. He provided fluorescent lamps and materials for the growth of cyanobacteria in our project. He helped us analyze our construct analysis gels and provided general troubleshooting tips.
NIJIATI ABULIZI
LABORATORY TECHNICIAN
Biology
Nijiati also assisted in orienting our team with the lab space, providing us with a spectrophotometer, pipettes, antibiotics and other reagents and met several times with our Wet Lab Lead to understand current experiment progress, providing inventory and technical support.
DR. ALYSE HAWLEY
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Civil Engineering, School of Engineering
As an Advisor, Dr. Hawley supported our team during initial project ideation, in addition to Dry Lab advice in our modular photobioreactor hardware design and our proposed implementation, given her specialty in synthetic microbial ecosystems and systems ecology.
DR. SHIRLEY HUTCHINSON
EVENT AND PROJECT MANAGER
Indigenous Programs & Services
Dr. Hutchinson was an amazing asset to our Integrated Human Practices! When first designing our survey, she was the first person to read it and give us constructive feedback! She turned our attention to RISe and gave us the confidence to keep moving forward with public distribution.
DOMINIQUE
ALEXIS
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Civil Engineering, School of Engineering
Dominique Alexis and her colleagues provided advice for approaching Indigenous artists, stressing the importance of the sustainability of our project. Further, she sent us contacts, including Les Louis, who we ended up working with to strengthen community ties for Integrated Human Practices!