Meet the team: Evan Gibbs
Introducing Evan, advisor to the DeNovocastrians iGEM team.
Evan has always been interested in biology. So, after a 20 year career in hotel management, he decided to enrol in a bachelor of science majoring in Biology at the University of Newcastle. Evan said, “I decided to go back and do some further education to kick my brain into gear.”
At the end of his undergraduate degree Evan completed his Honours with Dr Karl Hassan, looking at a novel family of Efflux pumps in proteobacteria. He was then given the opportunity by Dr Hassan to undertake a PhD at the Bacterial Regulation & Transport Lab at the University of Newcastle. Evan’s area of study is small molecule overproduction, utilising biosensors and high throughput screening techniques.
When asked what made him joined the iGEM team Evan said, “I heard about the iGEM competition through researching transcription terminators and promoters for my biosensors. This intrigued me, and I was surprised I hadn’t heard of the competition previously.”
After asking around the Molecular Microbiology department, he found out that Joachim (another advisor for the team) had competed in iGEM previously. After doing some more research about it, and creating a case for why the university should compete, Joachim and Evan pitched it to Professor Neilan & Dr Hassan and the whole thing was off and racing. Evan’s role is as an advisor to the team, helping the students with the construction of the biosensor as well as guidance throughout the entire project.
In his spare time Evan is an avid home-brewer with, unsurprisingly, a growing library of yeast strains. He said, “My favourite 2 brews to make are an Oatmeal chocolate milk stout and a Red Rye IPA”.
He also enjoys going cycling with the ineffable Dr Mathews and trying to keep his two Jack Russell X Dachshunds, Lee & Roy Longfellow’s, in some semblance of sanity.
