Outreach
Society forms the beating heart of our project, Halocleen. During our journey, we have taken a lot from society and made earnest attempts to give back as much as possible. Our communication and education plans were strongly aimed at reaching the parts of the community that are unaware of synthetic biology and the global concerns surrounding the climate crisis. The activities carried out under Communication (labelled outreach) are discussed on this page. For activities related to education, head over to Education.
iGEM Booth
When we started off our project, we tried to analyze the root of the refrigerant problem, at the domestic level. During an Open Mic Event in the institute, we set up an iGEM Booth to reach out to the public in IISc. We talked to people from different socio-economic backgrounds regarding synthetic biology and our project. A survey was conducted to understand the disposal of refrigerators and air conditioners in Indian households and check the awareness of people on climate change and current initiatives at national and international levels.
SynBytes 2.0
iGEM IISc-Bengaluru held online talks under SynBytes 2.0 on Sep 10. The symposium was started by IISc’s 2021 iGEM team with the purpose of imparting knowledge about synthetic biology and its applications on a scientific and technical level. This year, we recognised how SynBio is much more than what goes on in the laboratory and tried to diversify the talks by adding entrepreneurial components.
Mr. Ian Crosby, Former Manager of sustainability initiatives for East Asia and the Pacific at the International Finance Corporation, talked about the Designing sustainability initiatives for international development. The aim was to familiarize people with the enormous amounts of coolants being released into the environment today due to the increasing usage of cooling devices. The sales are set to increase in tropical countries like India by a great margin over the next decade. Furthering the need for the development of sustainable growth models, Ian discussed the importance of circular economy in technology.
Talk by Dr. Charles DeLisi
Dr. Charles DeLisi, Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering at Boston University (also widely considered as the Father of the Human Genome Project) gave the second talk about the role of synthetic biology in tackling the climate change crisis. It focused on how synthetic biology and gene editing can help develop better solutions to problems related to climate change. The talk emphasized on the urgent need to fight environmental adversities that will be detrimental to the future of the biosphere.
Mascot Hunt
In an initiative to introduce people to the idea of our project and make them familiar with the biology behind our project, we held a mascot design competition that was open to the general public. The entries we received won our hearts!
Our team member, Krishna Bharadwaj, took a step ahead and gave a finishing touch to our favorite mascot, “Puticorn.”
All India iGEM Meet
Team iGEM IISc took the initiative to organize the All India iGEM Meet (AIIM) from July 24th - 26th, hosting 13 iGEM teams from all over the country in the beautiful city of Bengaluru. During the three day mega-event, we invited eminent personalities from different fields for talks and held a mock Jamboree with judges from all backgrounds.
Talks during AIIM 2022
Our speakers include:
- Dr Ramray Bhat: Assistant Professor, MRDG, IISc; A known figure in cell morphogenesis, he talked about frontiers in Cancer Biophysics. Given a substantial number of the teams were working on Cancer Biology, the talk proved extremely insightful.
- P Gowri Shankar: Founder of Kalinga Centre for Forest Research, he is a herpetologist renowned around the globe for his efforts to conserve King Cobra. He holds great knowledge in snake species and venoms and our audience loved interacting with him.
With the iGEM Ambassadors, we incorporated talks by people affiliated with iGEM at various forefronts to discuss their lives post competition. These included:
- Dr. Lavanya, PhD Laboratory of Immunogenics, Imperial College, London: Co-PI iGEM IISER Bhopal 2018 & 2019
- Sana Jalili: A member of the Phoenix project, iGEM
- Sheba Cheeran: Represented the WiSTEM community of iGEM
For the opening and closing of the ceremony, we invited Professor Padmanaban Govindarajan (Former Director-IISc, awarded the Padma Bhushan), Dr. Usha Vijayraghavan (Professor, Deptt. of Microbiology and Cell Biology, IISc), Dr. Dipshikha Chakravortty (Professor, Deptt. of Microbiology and Cell Biology, IISc). All of them had unique experiences to share and addressed the audience about the advancement of biology as a field, how initiatives like iGEM promote using it for the benefit of humankind and the ecosystem.
We invited judges from diverse backgrounds to help teams gauge their progress and presentation. The panel included:
- Ms. Varsha Jaisimha, Current After iGEM Coordinator, former iGEM IISER-Pune member (Incoming PhD at Imperial College, London): Being an ex-leader of an iGEM team previously, she guided the Indian teams with her insight on almost all project segments. Every team had a lot to take home from her suggestions for improvement.
- Dr. Tapan Chandra Adhyapak, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, IISER Tirupati: Given his background in statistical physics and biological systems, we could not have relied on anyone better for the judgment of the Dry Lab and Implementation segments of the projects.
- Dr. Bitasta Das, Senior Editor at the Office of Communications (OOC), IISc: With her strong involvement in research about crucial social issues and experience in outreach, she proved to be an ideal judge for the human practices and education part of our projects.
- Dr. Kesavardana Sannula, Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, IISc: He judged the wet lab part of our projects and provided vital inputs to the teams on the biology of the projects.
Our team worked tirelessly to educate students and the community on synthetic biology and to spread awareness on the urgentness of the climate crisis. Visit our Education page to check out the amazing work we have done!
Fireside Chat with Ms. Varsha Jaisimha
After the conclusion of the judging session, we realized that the teams participating in AIIM could benefit more from an overall evaluation of the teams' performances. To help us prepare better for the Grand Jamboree, we scheduled a fireside chat with Ms. Varsha Jaisimha, current After iGEM Coordinator and iGEM Alumni (IISER-Pune.) Through a series of questions discussing the aspects of managing an iGEM project and her inputs about how we could document and present better, Varsha managed to positively influence our projects till the very end.
