Kong Khai Jien

Chairman and Chief Technologist

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Khai is the initiator of CUO. He is a multidisciplinary biologist currently studying MSc Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine at UCL. Although he has background in biology, he took the initiative to pick up computational skills through self-learning. In his final year research project, he spotted the potential of CUO while engineering a pipeline for gene optimization in C. reinhardtii’s chloroplast. Over one year, he expanded CUO from a humble codon usage analysis tool into a versatile open source bioinformatics software. He has a far vision for CUO but nevertheless possesses entrepreneur spirit to rise it up.

Freedanz Ferdinandz

Chief Executive Officer

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Freedanz Ferdinandz has an executive and managerial role within the team and is involved in creating the business plan. Studying MEng Biochemical Engineering with Bioprocess Management at UCL he has been involved in various societies within and outside his department as well as projects such as the Abbott Innovation University Challenge where he led the team to the first prize. In combination with his exposure to various industries such as management consulting, patent law and biotechnology during internships, his personality profile and skills in leadership, organization and communication have enhanced a lot. He has been awarded various recognitions including the A-level scholarship initiated by McKinsey, Bosch and Telekom the Sir Derek Scholarship for the commitment to Biochemical Engineering. The wide and diverse industry of Biotechnology is the sector he is aiming to change and lead during his career.

Alfred Ho

Chief Operating Officer

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Alfred Ho is a biomedical scientist in his BSc tasked with creating, communicating, executing and sustaining a well-thought-out Development & Growth Strategy evolving round CUO. He sees life sciences as a viable new economy and paradigm shift, finally blossoming and taking off exponentially because of the recent ‘crossovers and fusion’ of precision engineering disciplines (including, but not limited to nanotechnology, electronics and ICT) and robust hardcore quantitative sciences (especially Physics, Chemistry, Applied Mathematics and Computer Sciences) with the hitherto rather raw & primitive biological sciences. He assembled the UCL iGEM:E team, partaking with friends made from UCL iGEM 2011, UCL OpenLabs and LBS to gain insight into the innovative and competitive dynamics of novel marketplaces, not to mention the pleasure of spending yet another productive summer in the companionship of congenial people.

Ali Versi

Senior Vice President, Web & Systems

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Ali is a recent graduate from the prestigious Department of Biochemical Engineering at University College London. Under the leadership of Freedanz Ferdinandz he was part of the team which brought the first place prize of The 2012 Abbott Innovation Challenge to UCL. He is about to start a Master of Research degree in Systems and Synthetic Biology at Imperial College London. He has an interest in using artificial intelligence techniques such as Neural Networks and Bayesian Inference to solve biological problems. Ali has a broad programming skill set and has experience in various systems and frameworks, including Ubuntu servers, Cocoa, GNUstep, GTK+, Qt, Django, Pylons and Sproutcore. He is part of the CUO API development team and is leading the development of the soon to be released CUO website and web app. He reports directly to the Chairman and CEO.

Anastasia Suprun

Chief Financial Officer

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Anastasia Suprun is one of the actors responsible for pure business and financial aspects. After her B.A. graduation in economics, management and financial services she worked as investment analyst in a German insurance group. Moving from operative to strategic fields she became internal management consultant gaining a wide range of experience in business administration and process optimization. In addition to this she is the COO of a wholesale start-up between Russia and Germany which will be valuable in this project. She is currently doing an Executive Masters in Finance at London Business School.

Aakanksha Khandelwal

Chief Strategy Officer

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Aakanksha Khandelwal is the Chief Strategy Officer for the team and supports the team at the crossroads of business and science. After a Ph.D. in pharmacology she worked at the United States Food and Drug Administration as a clinical pharmacologist in the areas of oncology and hematology. She's now pursuing an MBA from the London Business School and has interned in Roche and Johnson & Johnson working on strategy projects internationally. She enjoys healthcare entrepreneurship and also carries out strategy consulting on the side.

Ng Kheng Tee

Chief Scientific Officer

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Kheng Tee Ng is the one responsible for assessing the scientific and technical feasibility of the product. He is a recent BSc Biotechnology graduate from University College London. Throughout his studies and projects including iGEM, internships in Malaysian R&D labs and Abbott Innovation Challenge, he was exposed and experienced in various lab techniques, extensive literature reviews and scientific presentations. For his work and dedication, he was awarded several recognitions including the faculty medal, first prize Abbott Innovation Challenge, Federation of European Biochemical Societies medal, to name a few. He is going to start his PhD in Biotechnology at University of Cambridge.

Li Meng

Human Resources Officer

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Li Meng is a Biochemical Engineering student taking the role as Company Secretary focusing on human resources and outreach. She also fulfils tasks in the field of Marketing Development. Her research experience has been obtained in viral pathogenesis and cancer biology. Apart from her strong passion in scientific research, she is also interested in translating innovations from the bench to commercial products. Being aware of the rapidly evolving relationship between science and industry, she built up the collaboration between London Business School and UCL to seek a better way of fitting scientific discoveries into the global economy. She has also contributed in the development of CUO with background research.

Mohamad Farhan Bin Mohamad Sobri

Chief Communication Officer

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As a member of the UCL IGEM Entrepreneurship Challenge 2012 team, Farhan is tasked in contributing to the team wherever possible and required. Particular emphasis is placed on editing the team’s documents, attributed to his proficiency in literature. In the field of Life Sciences, he is most interested in the emergence of both 3rd generation algal based biofuels and tissue engineering in the medical field. He sees iGEM E as a great way to learn how to form a business based on a novel product and subsequently, be able to engage with like minded individuals to improve himself as a whole.