Team
Sreenivas Eadara
- Led the genetic design and developed assembly strategy for wetlab, including part selection and custom part design. Performed Level 1 assembly of genes to be incorporated in multigenic constructs and submitted for sequencing. Performed circuit simulation, schematic and layout capture, and board assembly for coil driver. Attended meetings with Dr. Simon Gilroy and Dr. Richard Barker, and presented at Mid-Atlantic Meetup and Phototrophs conferences. Completed safety and check-in documentation for the team. Edited promotion video and wrote judging form.
Tiara Safaei
- Developed kinetic model for iron loading, developed medium transport model, researched different plant growth media, researched kinetic parameters to calculate dimensionless numbers and binding parameters, as well as establish assumptions. Researched agricultural ethics perspectives that could influence our project and proposed implementation. Initiated outreach to Dr. Paul B. Thompson and facilitated the discussion. Managed social media, worked on wiki development and editing, contributed to colour scheme and graphic design. Presented at MidAtlantic Meetup and Phototroph Community Virtual Conference.
Sheryl Lin
- Contributed to brainstorming for our ferritin import approach. Researched and identified potential statolith transit peptides. Contributed to wetlab experimental design. Carried out wetlab construct assembly and troubleshooting, cultivation of plants, and iron dosing experiments. Created educational videos for the Youtube channel, and organized the video collaborations with other teams. Made team logos, shirts, and artwork. Proofread applications for grants and threw plant sale fundraisers.
Joshua Zhou
- Helped in developing iron loading and medium transport models. Researched ferritin structure and mechanisms to determine non-negligible components for the models. Helped in the ideation process. Worked on wiki development.
Yukang (James) Li
- Led the hardware design of the clinostat-coil assembly and electronics enclosure. Modeled and 3D printed the parts for the clinostat-coil assembly and the electronics enclosure. Worked with Lucas Gurerra and Sreenivas Eadara to finalize the physical and electrical parameters of the coils and enclosure.
Siyona Mishra
- Participated in brainstorming and project ideation and identified Researched nutritional deficiencies in astronauts + iron poisoning/deficiencies. Contributed section to the Phototroph Handbook on plant evolution and development. Created an educational video on agarose gel protocol and contributed to promo video with voiceover + editing. Helped organize and promote plant sale fundraisers and managed social media. Presented at Phototroph Community Virtual Conference. Aided in writing wiki content.
Richard Hu
- Fundraising, writing and reviewing grant proposals, securing competition, travel, and materials funds, and creating promotional materials for our crowdfund. Assisted with construct assembly, troubleshooting, and iron dosing experiments. Worked on wiki development and editing. Contributed to background research for the iron loading model. Helped organize plant sale fundraisers.
Viggy Vanchinathan
- Researched current synthetic biology literature, ideated potential projects and presented ideas. Developed firmware for i2C receiver device ATTiny412 through Arduino programming and datasheet.
Lucas Guerra
- Calculated the parameters necessary for a pair of coils to generate a magnetic force on ferritin similar to the force of gravity with a mathematical model. Developed firmware for an I2C controller to manage the currents driven on both coils.
Sarah Lu
- Participated in ideation and worked on wiki development and editing. Assisted and participated in discussions involving fundraising/financing concerns for the iGEM trip.
Zoe Hsieh
- Participated in project ideation and researched scientific literature, contributed to writing protocols for the culturing and transformation of Arabidopsis thaliana and transformation into Agrobacterium. Participated in wet lab experiments (E.coli transformation, PCR, minipreps).
Joshua Devier
- Lead protein, DNA, and GROMICS simulation based computational modeling. Modeled P. furious, E. coli, H. sapien, and Soybean Ferritin monomer folding and complexes. Analyzed effect of ferritin fusion proteins and tags on ferritin folding utilizing PyRosetta and AlphaFold2. Additionally, utilized the protein engineering Protein MPNN to predict protein sequences for alternative folds. He also designed the iron-plant-ferritin transport model. Additionally, went to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL) to perform electroporation of engineered plasmids into agrobacterium tumefaciens. Additionally, helped plant AstroPlants (Fast Plants) into cubicles prior to agrobacterium infection/gene-transfer. Additionally, he leads MagGenix, a design team/start-up in an adjacent engineering space, that partnered with Hopkins iGEM to tackle key engineering tasks.
Advisors
Kalen Clifton
- Provided feedback on project ideas during brainstorming. Reviewed grant proposals for fundraising. Reviewed script for project promotional video. Advised the development of experimental designs. Attended meetings with Dr. Collin Timm and Jeffrey Shipp for discussion on experiments. Assisted with executing and troubleshooting wetlab experiments for assembly of parts (E. coli transformation, minipreps, TypeIIS digestion and ligation, PCR) . Helped maintain a lab notebook. Attended collaboration meetings with East Coast Biocrew and William & Mary iGEM teams. Attended MidAtlantic meetup. Attended Phototroph Community meetings. Attended meetings with Dr. Paul B. Thompson and Dr. Gioia Massa for discussion on project implementation and human practices. Aided in writing wiki content and initializing Parts Registry pages.
Amatullah Nakara
- Participated in brainstorming and project ideation. Advised in experimental design and planning. Participated in executing wetlab experiments for construct assembly. Initiated outreach to Dr. Gioia Massa, Dr. Simon Gilroy and Dr. Richard Barker for obtaining project feedback and insights. Participated in fundraising, and writing and reviewing grant proposals. Aided in writing wiki content.
Sponsors
Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation | 2022 iGEM Impact Grant
- The Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation generously sponsored 90 iGEM teams in 2022, emphasizing impact and developments in the synthetic biology community. Their grant was indispensable to the competition and especially enabled us to acquire the hardware components necessary for our interdisciplinary design.
Promega | 2022 Promega iGEM Grant
- We are grateful to be one of 10 teams sponsored in 2022 by Promega, an industry leader in reagent “tool kits” and integrated systems. The reagents and competent cells afforded by their award in products were well-utilized throughout our wet-lab design and experimentation.
Zymo Research
- Zymo has generously supported our team with state-of-the-art products, for which we found immediate use throughout our construct assembly and validation. Their sponsorship came with a personal touch, and their cookie recipe will be found at Hopkins iGEM student gatherings for years to come!
WSE Undergraduate Conference Travel Fund
- The Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering’s Conference Travel Fund regularly supports our undergraduates’ professional development expenses. Their contributions to each engineering student attending the iGEM Jamboree made our costs of competing immensely more affordable.
JHU Biomedical Engineering
- JHU BME’s generously allocated budget to Hopkins iGEM were essential to advancing our wet-lab process with reagents, synthesis and sequencing, and consumables.
JHU HOUR Advance Fund
- The Office of Undergraduate Research’s contribution to our team, in support of professional development and research at Hopkins, defrayed competition costs for our thirteen undergraduates.
Beckman Coulter
- Beckman Coulter is a prolific sponsor of the iGEM community, and our Hopkins team was no exception. We are especially grateful for their CosMCPrep kit, which we used for our plasmid purifications.
Integrated DNA Technologies
- IDT’s prolific donation of free base pairs to iGEM teams was one of two DNA sources essential to our assembly!
Twist Bioscience
- Twist Bioscience, another platinum sponsor in the iGEM community, was our second and equally essential source of base pairs for assembly!
New England Biolabs
- We and the iGEM community were very grateful for NEB's reagents and enzymes—fundamental to any synbio project!
University Fundraising and Logistics
WSE Conference Fund
Michael Falk - Vice Dean of Undergraduate Education, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Physics (Johns Hopkins)
Betty Zee - Sr. Academic Program Coordinator, WSE Undergraduate Academic Affairs
- $4,800 in aid toward competition and travel expenses ($800 per engineering student)
JHU BME Department
Cathy Jancuk - Academic Program Manager at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering
- A generous $1,000 donation that supported our project and experimentation.
HOUR JHU Advance Fund
Deborah Buffalin - Program Manager
- $1,000 contribution toward student competition and conference expenses.
Amanda Colaianni - Associate Director of Development at The Hopkins Fund
- Organized, advised, and developed our crowdfunding campaign.
LEED at JHU
Erika Chance - Budget Specialist at Leadership, Engagement and Experiential Development (LEED) office at Johns Hopkins
- - Organized our finances, donations, and all purchases for the project and competition.
Crystal Hooper
- - Coordinating, advising our competition travel.
Calvin L. Smith Jr. - Sr. Director at LEED
- - Advising our crowdfunding campaign, competition travel, and student organization strategies.
JHU Study Abroad
Jessica Mervis - Director of Global Education Office, Johns Hopkins University
- Organizing, advising, and fulfilling our competition travel
Our wonderful faculty advisors!
Dr. Jessica Dunleavey - Lecturer at Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University
Dr. Winston Timp - Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University
- Guidance, direction, lab resources, and critical feedback throughout the process. From advising our experimental direction to reviewing project ideation and grant proposals, Drs. Dunleavey and Timp were critical to our development as an iGEM team.
Project Design and Wetlab
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Dr. Collin Timm - Senior Staff Scientist
Jeffrey Shipp - Staff Scientist
- Provided us with Arabidopsis seeds and MS media
- Advised on using statolith-free Arabidopsis mutants as controls
- Helped in acquiring mutants from TAIR
- Advised on plant growth conditions
- Advised through the experimental planning process and reviewing protocols
- Advised on building the clinostat
- Advised on using statolith-free mutants as controls
- Led us through electrotransformation of agrobacterium
- Providing soil and fertilizer to continue growth of Brassica rapa
René Inckemann - iGEM Engineering Committee
- Answered our queries related to the MoClo assembly
- Shared protocols for Arabidopsis transformation, and Golden Gate assembly, and advised on appropriate antibiotic concentrations
Dr. Hsou-min Li - Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
- Provided advice on identifying transit peptides sequences in Gene Ontology Resource
Rasmus Hildebrandt - Mentor for Hopkins iGEM team
- Gave critical suggestions with respect to consideration of safety and regulatory perspectives
Lab Practicalities and Supplies
Jess Hosea - Laboratory Technician in Timp Lab, Johns Hopkins University
- Helped receive many of the reagents, cells, oligos, and gene fragments we obtained through sponsorships, stored them at appropriate temperatures, and made it easy for us to move them to their final locations.
Human Practices
Dr. Paul Thompson - Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University
- Advised on ethical concerns surrounding genetically engineered agricultural products on Earth and how that could be extended to Space
- Shared insights on ethical aspects of the safety, public opinion, and policy considerations that come with introducing genetically modified organisms in agriculture
- Shared perspectives on potential ethical and policy considerations we would have to consider to implement our project in real-world
Dr. Gioia Massa - Plant Scientist at NASA Kennedy Space Center and Scientist - NASA VEGGIE project
- Suggested we consider “where we would be essentially directing the roots” which led us to develop the drylab model for screening suitable substrates that could substitute arselite as the plant growth medium
- Shared insights on problems currently faced by plant growth systems like the NASA’s VEGGIE and Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) systems
- Gave us critical feedback on our project
- Suggested potential implementations for our project
NASA Advanced Plants Working Group (AWG)
Dr. Simon Gilroy - Professor of Botany at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Co-chair of AWG at NASA
Dr. Richard Barker - Research Scientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Co-chair of AWG at NASA
- Advised on validating our TAIR mutants using skew assays and Lugol starch staining
- Shared insights on plant phenotypes observed in space
- Shared insights on considerations for magnetic interference in space
- Gave us critical feedback on our project
- Suggested potential implementations for our project