IISER Pune Team 1
We kickstarted the cycle by teaming up with iGEM IISER Pune, a team from our own institute. IISER Pune hosts and organizes one of India's largest science quizzes, 'Mimamsa', annually. It has participants from all parts of the country and is a national platform for college students to showcase their skill in comprehension and critical thinking. We and iGEM IISER Pune Team 1 set up a stall at the Mimamsa Science Fest, an event held in conjunction with the aptitude tests. We unveiled our project abstract, and conducted hands-on activities for high school, middle school, and college students. We helped students explore microscopy with foldscopes, and the logic of DNA packaging and protein structure with origami models. We also tried to introduce them to the discipline of Synthetic Biology and the basic principles of the same, with a game to teach them how restriction enzymes work on plasmids, and a fun trivia quiz about elementary genetics.
Makerere Uganda
We met with Team Makerere Uganda early in the iGEM cycle when we found that they were working on Malaria. Malaria, like Dengue, is another neglected tropical disease that claims many lives every year, spread by a different genus of mosquito. Team Makerere has been trying to create a repellent against mosquitoes to prevent malaria, by synthesizing a special compound in a yeast system. Since Makerere was participating in iGEM for the first time in a very long time, we were delighted to help them out with some details on how to go about the iGEM Cycle.
Dengue Pledge
Dengue is a serious problem in society and it continues to spread to
more countries in the world because of the rising temperatures. With the
intention of spreading awareness about this disease in the world, we
formulated a pledge to make this world free from Dengue. We sent this
pledge to teams from around the world. Many teams were kind enough to
send us a video of themselves and their team members reciting the
pledge.
Some of these teams were: IISER Berhampur, MSP iGEM team, Tec CEM team,
IISER Pune Team 1, UAM iGEM team, MIT_MAHE.
Team Virginia
We partnered with Team Virginia throughout this iGEM season. Team Virginia has been working on developing a diagnostic kit for atherosclerosis. Their kit involves the production and expression of antibodies using the SHuffle E.coli strain. As both our projects involved healthcare and utilised the same chassis for antibody production, we decided it would be a great opportunity to partner up. We collaborated extensively in terms of wet lab, dry lab and human practices. In the early stages of planning molecular docking simulations, they told us that they had been having success with the software Rosie, which has since proved invaluable to us as a tool. We created a document together regarding the handling of our chassis - SHuffle E.coli - with the knowledge we gained from literature, experts and personal experience.
Tokyo Tech iGEM Team
Team Tokyo Tech from Japan has been working on developing a diagnostic kit for Dengue. We were very lucky to meet with them and speak about our projects. We discussed the ways in which a rapid diagnostic kit along with a therapeutic could, together, eradicate Dengue from the world. We planned to meet again so they could interview one of our team members who suffered from Dengue before for their Integrated Human Practices.
Team IISc Bangalore
Team IISc Bangalore came up with a booklet ‘Sync: A Window to the World
of Synthetic Biology’ which is an information guide to anyone new to the
field of SynBio. The booklet talks about Biomolecules, DNA, Synbio and
Ethics and Values in Synbio. The booklet is very entertaining and
interesting to get anyone interested in the field of SynBio. We
translated this document to our city’s regional language Marathi. You
can find the document below.
Sync IISc
All India iGEM Meet (AIIM)
This year, for the first time after a very long time, the 'All India
iGEM Meet' was an offline event, and our team had the privilege of
attending the same. Team IISc Bangalore hosted the entire event in their
institute, and it was a mesmerizing festival filled with excellent
talks, judging sessions, poster presentations, games, and much more. It
was wonderful to see teams from across the country trying to tackle
local issues with Synthetic Biology tools. The event was held from 23
July to 25 July 2022. It was attended by all fourteen Indian teams
participating in the iGEM Competition 2022, namely, IISER Tirupati,
IISER Behrampur, IISER Mohali, IISc Bangalore, IIT Roorkee, MIT Mahe,
IISER Tvm, IISER Pune Team 1, VIT Vellore, IISER Bhopal, IIT Delhi, REC
Chennai, ICT Mumbai, IISER Pune Team 2, along with many members from the
iGEM Community.
The Meet hosted representatives from WiSTEM, iGEM EPIC, the Phoenix
project, the Mentors network, and the ambassadors. The first day of AIIM
consisted of several talks by the iGEM Asia Ambassadors, where they
addressed the iGEM teams and spoke of the various opportunities for
iGEMers beyond the scope of the competition. We were introduced to
multiple iGEM Community programs such as the Phoenix project, WiSTEM
Program, iGEM Indian League, iGEM EPIC, etc. The seminars were followed
by an event of elevator pitch sessions and round table discussions with
Biotech Startup founders and CEOs organized by iGEM EPIC Members. It
was, by all means, an enriching experience.
The second day was filled with poster and project presentations by all
the participating teams. All the teams were guided and judged by
experienced professors and members of the iGEM Community. The last day
of the All India iGEM Meet was concluded with fun filled discussions and
a prize distribution ceremony for the best performances by the
participating teams in various aspects of their projects.
Manipal BioMachines (MIT_MAHE)
We collaborated extensively with Team MIT_MAHE and partnered with them
along with team Virginia. We were both Indian teams working with protein
expression and purification, using similar plasmid vectors as well.
Vibriosis is a bacterial disease primarily observed in marine,
estuarine, and occasionally, freshwater fish. It is caused by bacteria
of the genus Vibrio and is a significant reason for mortality in
pisciculture operations. MIT_MAHE has been working on a small peptide
therapeutic for the same. Details about our Wet lab, Dry Lab and Human
Practices collaborations are available on our
Partnership
page.
In the spirit of sharing and understanding seafood within the context of
different cuisines and localities, MIT_MAHE's iGEM team decided to
collaborate on a compendium of dishes that involve aquatic animals! The
main aim of this Geo Book is to celebrate diversity and bring more
recognition to what affects our favourite palates of seafood. We hope
that every reader has a fruitful experience!
Team Calgary
We participated in the JulyGEM event, organized by iGEM Team Calgary, where we pitched our project along with teams from around the globe. Team Calgary had gathered experts from multiple fields to facilitate insightful and constructive guidance regarding the various projects. Following JulyGEM, we met up with team Calgary, who told us they needed help running Molecular Docking simulations. We had been running these simulations to check our antibody's binding to our antigen and to the FcRn receptor. We ran several docking simulations for the Calgary team. Our team was interested in running Molecular Dynamics simulations, which Team Calgary was well-versed in. They helped us choose the ideal software systems and explained to us some of its nitty-gritties. They were kind enough to connect us with a student at Calgary University who worked with the same. We are very grateful to Andrew Symes for all his help with our work.
Team USP EEL Brazil
We had multiple meetings with team USP EEL for discussions about neglected tropical diseases. We exchanged surveys to get a better understanding of both our projects on a global scale. They connected us to Professor Maulori Curio Cabral who has worked on Dengue prevention for more than ten years. Professor Cabral was extremely helpful in making us understand the spread of Dengue in Brazil. Team USP EEL put us in a better place to understand the epidemiology of dengue, and allowed us to draw comparisons between the disease occurrence in our countries and the various measures taken to prevent it.
