Detailed contributions by student members, instructors, advisors, and professors.
Dr. Zeinab Hosseini-Doust: Dr. Zeinab Hosseini-Doust is the faculty Supervisor of McMaster SynBio. She provided critical support for the development of the project. Dr. Hosseini-Doust was involved in the administration of the team.
Kyle Jackson: Kyle Jackson is the Advisor of McMaster SynBio. He was closely involved in the project development and experimental design process. Specifically, Kyle offered in-depth knowledge about bacteriophages and gene therapy modalities. Kyle was also involved in team management.
Dr. George P. Smith: Dr. George P. Smith provided the team with the f3-55nm and fMCS plasmids used to form the backbone of the AAVP vector, as well as bacterial stabs for future use. He also supplied the team with literature to assist in working with the plasmid, and gave an array of vital advice for our project.
Kian Yousefi Kousha: Kian is the Co-President of McMaster SynBio and the leader of its Outreach Division. Kian organized the human practices projects and led the execution of our team’s public outreach initiatives. Kian is also responsible for the team’s general administrative duties and fundraising.
Jessica Wang: Jessica is the Co-President of McMaster SynBio, primarily responsible for the wet lab. She can be found planning experiments, setting timelines, writing protocols, training members in the lab, as well as leading meetings, performing administrative duties, managing the lab, and troubleshooting.
Yu Yan Hugo: Hugo is the Co-President of McMaster SynBio and the Wet Lab Lead. Hugo conceived the wet lab project and led the research and development process. Hugo is also responsible for the team’s general administrative duties, laboratory management and operations.
Parvathy Unnikrishnan: Parvathy is one of the co-presidents of the McMaster SynBio team that helped with human practices and outreach. She is responsible for hosting weekly meetings for the Human Practices subteam. She was involved in the recruitment of members and high school interns. She has also attended meetings with collaborators (including webinars with professors).
Ryan Bruni: Ryan is the instructor of the SynBio team, who focused on training members in laboratory techniques, protocols, and proper use of laboratory equipment. Prior to training, he coordinated with the BI Institute to acquire laboratory space for experiments and organized a team schedule for members entering the lab. Ryan also reached out to several groups and organizations to promote SynBio and its project, acquiring sponsorships to progress the team’s goals.
Ayesha Umair: As one of the Wet Lab Leads, Ayesha worked on various experiments in the lab involved in the development of the onCAP phage and helped plan the project timeline, including research on the design and development of AAVP vectors. She worked on the initial research for the project and assisted with outreach events. As the Webmaster, Ayesha planned the UI/UX for the team's wiki and programmed it.
Yadnyasen Jamdar: As one of the Wet Lab Leads, Yadnyasen reviewed protocols and helped train members on laboratory procedures and equipment.
Josh Tony: Josh is a Wet Lab Member, who helped research AAVP vectors and experiments in the lab. Josh has also taken lab notes and helped with agar plate set up and analyzing the results of gel electrophoresis. In terms of research, Josh wrote about the general features of AAVPs and their function.
Dana Kukje Zada: As a Wet Lab Member, Dana researched laboratory methods to construct and test the efficacy of the AAVP vector, CD22 as a target, and the use of the scFv. Dana also coordinated and oversaw the collaboration with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada, the design of the brochure and survey, and the webinar with Dr. Alexander Hynes. Dana was part of the production team for the promotional video, participating in the generation of the idea, filming, and editing of the video. In the lab, Dana conducted multiple experiments to construct the AAVP vector and assisted with writing protocols.
Maia Poon: Maia researched potential cell-surface receptor cancer targets for the onCAP platform and helped select CD22 for the proof-of-concept. As a Wet Lab Member, she worked on various experiments in the lab, and analyzed the alignment of the experimental fMCS sequence with the originally designed sequence. As the Finance Coordinator, she managed sponsorship attainment and budgets
Ethan Tran: Ethan developed the Matlab Simbiology model used for modeling the AAVP transgene. He worked alongside other Wet Lab Members to ensure the model’s accuracy. While developing the model, he did lots of literature research to find various constants and parameters from reputable sources to produce the most accurate result.
Isha Masood: Isha researched the transgenic delivery of TNFα and GrzB peptides into cancerous cells to induce apoptosis. As a Wet Lab Member, she assisted with various experiments and procedures in the lab. Isha collaborated with the team to design primers and the AAVP plasmid containing the transgene cassette on Benchling. She was also part of the production team for the promotional video by participating in the development and filming of the video.
William Pihlainen-Bleecker: Will researched the phage and plasmid backbones for the onCAP platform and acquired them from Dr. Smith. In preparation for wet lab work, he designed the primers and final insertion sequences used based on sequence models of the phages he prepared in silico on Benchling. As a Wet Lab Member, he designed and worked on various experiments in the lab, especially the protocol design and subsequent sequencing of the unverified fMCS phage from Dr. Smith, as well as the final phage product.
Binjal Pradhan: Binjal researched the construction of the AAVP vector, narrowing down the options for a backbone and went in depth into cancer treatments as well as their success. She has been able to connect the project from a science point of view and relate it back to the human side of our project by sharing her findings on the side effects of current treatments and how the project would help avoid such effects for patients. In the lab, she has made the miniprep her major duty as well as reading samples using a nanoquant reader to ensure there is DNA and that it is plentiful! Binjal has been able to find major funding as well as promote the team to the community through logo design, video promotion, team bonding, memes and trip planning for the conference, alongside occasional administrative duties.
Kaci Kuang: Kaci researched the mechanisms of B-cell lymphoma and assisted in various experiments and laboratory procedures as a Wet Lab Member. She also aided in the scripting, filming and production of the project promotional video.
Aiman Dhiloon: As a Wet Lab Member, Aiman assisted with various laboratory experiments and helped plan the timeline of the project. She also contributed to background research and project development, and played an active role in the team's external collaborations.
Marvin Yan: Marvin is part of the Outreach/Human Practices Team of McMaster Synbio. He assisted in structuring and coordinating the internship program, editing articles, and providing guidance on the documentary-styled series of videos in production.
Shivani Elango: Shivani is a part of the Outreach/Human Practices Team for McMaster Synbio. She assisted with brainstorming ideas for the iGEM announcement video, worked on the structure of the internship program, was involved in the interviewing and selection process of high school interns, reached out to cancer influencers on instagram to conduct interviews with them for the ‘Cancer Interview Series’ and created transcripts for their video interviews.
Misaal Mehboob: Misaal is part of the Outreach/Human Practices Team of McMaster SynBio and assisted in reaching out to organizations and iGEM teams for potential collaborations on this year’s project. She hosted a webinar with a well-known neurosurgeon-scientist to gain expertise on our cancer project. She also helped write and edit articles relating to various issues surrounding cancer, which were published in local media outlets.
Man Hei (Sally) Tsoi: Sally is part of the Outreach/Human Practice Team for McMaster Synbio. She designed social media posters for promoting webinars and internship initiatives. She created a brochure to raise awareness about B cell lymphoma and the McMaster Synbio wet lab project in collaboration with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada. She also participated in writing and editing an article on cancer caregiver that was published in the Hamilton Spectator.
Janani Sridev: Janani is part of the Outreach/Human Practices Team for McMaster Synbio. She was responsible for hosting, editing and posting the ‘Cancer Interview Series’. She was also involved in writing articles surrounding important topics around cancer. She helped organize various collaborations and guest speakers for the sake of cancer and synthetic biology education.
Katherine Chen: Katherine is an Outreach Member. She was responsible for creating the graphics for social media outreach initiatives, reaching out to organizations for potential collaborations, and writing news articles to educate the public on this year’s project and the science behind it. She created the Famous People with Cancer series on Instagram, bacteriophage therapy educational posts, and cancer breakthroughs posts. She has also helped write the article pertaining to the mental health impacts of cancer.
Cindy Zhang: Cindy is one of the co-presidents and Human Practices leads. She is responsible for hosting meetings for the Human Practices subteam. She was involved in the recruitment of members and high school interns. She also attended meetings with other iGEM teams, collaborators, and sponsors.
Matin Borhani: Matin is a member of the Outreach/Human Practices team who organized and hosted an educational program for Dalhousie University’s Medical Science Summer program (SuperNOVA). The program introduced topics in Synthetic Biology to young campers. Additionally he assisted in writing and editing project related articles that were later published in local news outlets.
*All diagrams were created using BioRender.
A list of our sponsors: McMaster Science Initiative Fund, Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology, MDConsultants, Adapsyn, McMaster University Faculty of Science, Institute of Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University, McMaster University President's Office.