Introduction
Pyre would not have been where it is today without the faith and support of everyone both within and beyond the team. This page is dedicated towards all individuals who have contributed towards the development of our project, regardless of significance. Thank you so much for your time and wisdom, it has been a pleasure to have you all onboard, and to witness our tremendous growth throughout the 2022 iGEM season!
Above all, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to our Principal Investigators, Dr Fabrizio Alberti and Dr Alexander Darlington. Without you, Team Pyre would not have existed. Thank you for being our main source of guidance and support throughout the project timeline.
Team Member Contributions
Aayush Patel contributed significantly during the early stages of rigorous literature reviews, which helped build the foundations of our project by informing our technical and scientific decisions. He spearheaded the development of protein modelling and was heavily involved wet lab for data curation. Outside the lab, he was heavily involved in engaging with stakeholders regarding the technical aspects of our project and constantly incorporating feedback into our lab work and project design. Besides, he led the organisation of the SLSymposium and assisted with wiki building.
Angeline Ng contributed in equal parts to Human Practices and outreach. Taking advantage of her social sciences background, she provided a more holistic and economic-oriented perspective on our project. She was also in charge of the Rolling Resonate design, Instagram content, team logo design and event-specific graphic designs.
Ashmitha Srirasan was responsible for the development and testing of our aptamer-based biosensor and managed to extend its application to a different target, in partnership with Concordia University.
Jerry Yu was most passionate about education on synthetic biology. He designed Lesson in a Box and created daily, bite-size educational content on YouTube to promote awareness around the subject matter. He also designed our survey questions, spearheaded the production of our promotional video and assisted with most of the graphic designs.
Mujie Chen was respectfully the most organised housekeeper for the team, never failing to coordinate and keep track of the progress on all aspects of our project. He led the team on the degradation part of the lab work and was the driver behind our well-established lab protocols. He was also the main liaising person in our partnership with Concordia University and our social media collaborations with other iGEM teams.
Prem Ravichandran is the computer scientist and therefore the wiki builder of the team. He also contributed to the design of our Rolling Resonate in CAD.
Yvette Lo is also part of the aptamer team and was responsible for the research, development, testing and extended application of our biosensor. She also contributed to the creation of social media content for science communication.
Zak Fulk was the heart and soul behind our mathematical modelling projects. He also collaborated with the KCL iGEM team to help troubleshoot and provide guidance on their modelling and reached out to his school to promote synbio and raised awareness around the opportunities available for young researchers.
Team Principal Investigators
Dr Fabrizio Alberti is the team’s primary principal investigator, who provided us with insightful advice and immense guidance (not to forget his imperishable patience) throughout, especially regarding lab technicalities and team administration duties.
Dr Alexander Darlington is the team’s secondary principal investigator, supporting us throughout the entire iGEM timeframe, specifically on the successful integration of modelling into our project and his occasional role-play of the devil’s advocate.
Postgraduate Advisors
Sandie Lai provided guidance on building our constructs, designing our enzyme assay, and running HPLC.
Daniel Richmond helped us with setting up competent E. coli cells, and provided extensive guidance regarding cloning, transformation and miniprep.
Michaël Tadesse helped with gel electrophoresis, solvent extractions, and running HPLC.
Academics
Professor Gary Bending allowed open discussions into the importance of a project targeting pesticide degradation, as well introducing us to the need for pesticide sensing systems
Dr Tae Seok Moon (McKelvey Institute) highlighted the importance of ensuring biocontainment is implemented well within our project, for example via kill switches, as our project relies upon proposed GMO release
Professor Matthew Gibson worked with us as an advisor regarding the handling of gold nanoparticles, which are an integral component within our aptamer-based biosensing system
Professor Richard Napier advised us on the technicalities of aptamers, and the opportunity for their potential use in cell-free aptamer biosensors.
Dr Alan Goddard (Aston University) provided guidance regarding the cell-surface expression involved within engineering our E. coli chassis
Professor Kevin Moffat and Dr Robert Spooner both volunteered their time to judge PhD presentations held within our SLSymposium event, helping in our outreach efforts
Dr Leanne Williams worked with us to ensure our survey, as part of Human Practices, attained ethical approval, whilst also providing us with Qualtrics software access to implement and distribute our survey
Dr Martin Mik helped us to distribute our survey and assist in planning SLSymposium
Christopher de Wolf helped us to troubleshoot HPLC results and planning our next steps
Pan Prasongpholchai for providing us with NEB turbo cells, training us in TLC and helping coordinate mass spectrometry runs
Dr Lory Barile provided us insights on the techniques and challenges in conducting cost and benefit analysis with regards to environmental policies.
External Stakeholders
Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre (WISB)
Dr Steven Servin Gonzalez guided the development of our outreach plan and provided resources from WISB for education.
Warwick Institute of Engagement (WIE) Team
James Brown helped guide the development of Rolling Resonate.
Widening Participation
Amanda Bishop provided contacts for widening participation schools and arranged the deployment of Lesson in a Box.
National University of Malaysia
Dr Hamidun Bunawan raised crucial concerns regarding both the practicality, and the market-value of our project, with which we were later able to address during discussions with various stakeholders
CHAP and Voluntary Initiative
Dr Victoria Wooley inspired us to reevaluate our project narrative and branch into Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
Dr Neal Evans opened further in-depth conversations regarding IPM
Syngenta
Dr Dave Hughes introduced to us the modern spraying technology which contributed greatly towards our proposed implementation
Dr Robin Oliver made us aware of the bioavailability of λ-Cyhalothrin in soil as the potential limiting factor for our degradation rate
DEFRA (HSE)
Dr Bryn Bircher guided us with various GMO legislations, whilst also providing an insight into overall GMO use and momentum in the UK
Severn Trent
Dr Alexandra Cooke provided us insights into the market relationship between water companies and farmers, which refined our understanding of the industry on a deeper level
Mr Peter Bowman showed us around the Severn Trent water catchment area and introduced us to the farmers that he works with
Warwickshire Wildlife Trust
Mr Ian Jelley helped us realise the potential use of Pyre’s sensing system in the wider context
National Farmers Union
Dr Chris Hartfield enabled fruitful discussion into the paradox concerning farming practices enforced by law, and the implications this can have on the agricultural industry, especially within an economic context
Sponsors
Special thanks to Warwick Innovation, Warwick Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine, Warwick School of Life Sciences, Warwick Department of Economics, Warwick Department of Computer Science and Warwick School of Engineering for your generous financial support.
We would also like to thank SnapGene, JMP, Geneious and BioRender for sponsoring free licencing of their softwares.
