Attributions

Contribution

Team members Rebecca Showalter, Michael Scott, and Sai Gayathri Kurup developed a Rhodococcus Q&A page modeled on the Baltimore BioCrew team’s Lactobacillus Q&A page last year. Shreyan Mitra, Oyujin Damdinsuren, Dhruv Veda, and Max Swann conducted the growth rate measurements under the direction of mentor Lisa Scheifele.

Wiki

Team members Rebecca Showalter, Maxwell Swann, Adam Hoffensetz, and Harry Wojcik were each assigned wiki pages to complete. They took information from each of the other subteams, styled it for the wiki, and coded each wiki page. Wiki team mentor Lydia Stamato led the team in weekly Zoom meetings through determining the audiences for the wiki page, looking at the information architecture, conducting a competitive analysis, creating the style guide, and ensuring accessibility.

Implementation

Team members Shreyan Mitra, Shumvobi Mitra, Maya Balakumaran, and Dhruv Veda researched how our project could be implemented in the real world. Based on what we learned from Kelly Bunker of the EPA, we researched the process for applying for and receiving EPA approval to release our organisms. Our mentor, Sara Ho, helped to guide our work.

Collaboration

Team members Dhurv Parikh and Jack Chen researched collaborations and, with the assistance of the whole team, worked with our collaborating teams to create a database of past iGEM projects related to our current topic, share constructive feedback on wikis, and attend and present at a regional iGEM meetup where project feedback was given; and worked with our partnering teams to create a series of educational videos about synthetic biology, provide ongoing project feedback, and to receive input on math modeling and implementation topics. Our discussions for these collaborations and partnerships were carried out in person, on Zoom, and through direct messaging. Our mentor Nina Rajpurohit provided guidance in navigating the available iGEM platforms for finding collaborators.

Human Practices

Team members Aditi Desai, Shea Hiken, Nadia Ghaicepour, and Smreeti Kafle. collaborated to research relevant stakeholders, ethical considerations and questions regarding the team project. They reached out to experts in PCBs and environmental regulations. They then shared the responsibility of drafting interview questions, interviewing for the podcast and editing the podcast. Our mentor Jorge Miguel Mendoza provided guidance in developing questions for the speakers.

Math Modeling

Team members Naomi Gelfer, Emily Ferrence, Oyujin Damdinsuren, Maxwell Swann, Pavin Rajagopal, and Shreyan Mitra developed the mathematical model under the teaching and guidance of their mentor Josh Popp. They met weekly to learn the relevant mathematical concepts, understand the system that the modeling would be applied to, and select the best equations and parameters for the model.

Design, Video, and Production

Team members Rebecca Showalter, Oyujin Damdinsuren, and Michael Scott designed graphics using Canva (https://www.canva.com). Luke Krushelnycky modeled PCB congeners and created GIFs using PyMol (https://pymol.org/2/). Rebecca Showalter and Oyujin Damdinsuren created graphics for the project promotion video and Michael Scott narrated and assembled the video. Mentor Lisa Scheifele helped to organize and guide the team.

Education and Communication

Team members Iris Zheng, Shumvobi Mitra, Jack Chen, James Rogers, and Sai Gayathri Kurup met weekly to discuss and develop educational materials. The team divided the work of creating educational social media posts, writing an article for a local Baltimore youth magazine, and teaching a class under the guidance of their mentor Leon Elcock.

Lab Work

Nearly all team members contributed to the labwork for this project.

At Baltimore Underground Science Space, work was carried out by: Adam Hoffensetz, Aditi Desai, Dhruv Veda, Emily Ferrence, Harry Wojick, Iris Zheng, Maxwell Swann, Michael Scott, Nadia Ghaicepour, Oyujin Damdinsuren, Pavin Rajagopal, Rebecca Showalter, Sai Gayathri Kurup, Shea Hiken, Shreyan Mitra, Shumvobi Mitra, and Smreeti Kafle

At Genspace, work was carried out by: Maya Balakumaran, Naomi Gelfer, Luke Krushelnycky, and James Rogers.

Our mentors Lisa Schiefele, Nina Rajpurohit, Sara Ho, Jorge Mendoza, Beth Tuck, Casey Lardner, and Debbie Leung provided guidance in all aspects of our lab work. They helped us to identify appropriate protocols, taught us techniques, and helped us to troubleshoot experiments.