Collaborations

The best thing about being a part of iGEM 2019 for us was a feeling of being in a community of science students across the globe. Furthermore, receiving and providing help to benefit teams in our country and in countries on the other side of the globe made us feel proud and promoted this feeling of belonging to a community united solely through science. Here we present our collaborations with different institutions that helped further our projects:

1. Mathematical Modelling with the other side of the globe: Amazonas-Brazil

Due to the similar nature of our projects (both involving targeted cancer treatment through immunotherapy), we were able to collaborate extensively with the iGEM team from Amazonas, Brazil. Though we discussed both wet lab and mathematical modelling, the collaboration was focussed on the latter. Upon explaining and discussing each of our modules with the team, we gained insight on how to approach solving our differential equations, and certain additional aspects that is often missed by beginners. Furthermore, both our teams were stuck at the problem of parameter estimation, and we sought to help each other out. Lastly, because of the interdisciplinary nature of Amazonas' iGEM team, we got suggestions on our fluid dynamics module, which helped us look at our problem from a different perspective.

2. Mentored by the finest: IISER Pune

Our collaboration with the IISER Pune team was three-fold: We helped them collect preliminary data on their project and their 2019 team in turn mentored us through our project. In addition to this, our team was a part of the iGEM Mentorship Program under which, we were mentored by Jyothish S, a past iGEMer (more about it below!). IISER Pune’s project involves creating a tool for directed evolution that can help speed up the process. They tested their tool to evolve a heavy metal remediating bacteria. The heavy metal chosen for this was lead, and they took data for lead pollution across our country. Our team provided this data and added to their sample set.
Our team in turn was mentored by the IISER Pune team. Initial help with troubleshooting was provided by Aarti Kejriwal who was a part of the 2017 and 2019 iGEM teams from IISER Pune. In particular, she helped our team with the protocol for competent cell preparation, gave us ideas and suggestions for poster and presentation at the All India iGEM Meet (Organised by IISER Bhopal) and Measurement Assay. Furthermore, the current iGEM team of the institute helped us prioritise our workload, and helped us focus on what was necessary to fulfill the medal criterion. Expertise from an experienced institute greatly helped us, since our team is the first from our institute.

3. Postcards from India to Germany: Duesseldorf, Germany

In a great effort to promote synthetic biology among the common public, iGEM team from Duesseldorf, Germany created a postcard project where in each participating team designed a postcard about either synthetic biology, or their current iGEM project. We thoroughly enjoyed creating a postcard which depicted out idea in an art style pioneered by the Indian artist Jamini Roy, and sent it all the way to Germany. Check it out!

4. All India iGEM Meetup arranged by IISER Bhopal

The All india iGEM Meetup brings together all the indian iGEM team and it is like a pre-Giant Jamboree. We presented our project idea and also made a poster. As the first iGEM team from our institute, we greatly profited from this meeting in the form of scientific inputs as well as previous teams’ experiences. The good feedback from this meet definitely gave a boost to our project. Not to mention we made a lot of new friends!

5. #InstaCollab: Stony Brook University

Our team had a lot of fun at the start of summer when we collaborated with our fellow iGEMers at Stony Brook University. We took part in their week-long Instagram challenge and their Lab Coat Challenge, wherein we came up with alternate and fashionable ways to wear a lab coat. When failed experiments made our days gloomy, their challenges helped us remember the fun we have while doing science, and also helped us increase our social media presence!

6. Collaboration with an mCherry on top: IISER Bhopal

Our friends at IISER Bhopal were facing a few hurdles in the expression of one of the biobricks - the stress sensor (BBA_K639003). We helped them by transforming the aforementioned part and inducing the said sensor at nutritional stress conditions. The reporter in the assay was mCherry, and we sent them the quantitative analysis for the data of the same. In turn, IISER Bhopal iGEM team helped us prepare samples for imaging FimB overexpressed bacteria. The samples for imaged using TEM and SEM by Dr. Vikas Jain's lab, though the results were negative for fimbrial expression. Because of these results, we instead went with FimE KO strain of E. coli. However, due to time constraints and a few technical errors, we were not able to get those imaged properly.

7. No survey too small: IISER Kolkata and Moscow

Apart from the aforementioned collaborations, we filled small surveys for 2 teams, namely:
IISER Kolkata: Their survey dealt with awareness about Kala Azar (Leishmaniasis).
Moscow: Their survey dealt with awareness and experience with tick borne diseases.
We hope we helped the two teams in some way to further their projects.

8. Mentorship Programme:

Our team was selected for the Mentorship Program organised by iGEM to help new teams with their projects. Our mentor was Jyothish S, an ex-iGEMer from IISER Pune. He helped us form a timeline for our experiments, troubleshoot our experiments, and guided us whenever we hit roadblocks. We are grateful to him for his help and suggestions, and to iGEM for organising this program.

➤ Footer

"We play with bacteria and sometimes they play us"

Contact us

Email: igemiisertirupati@gmail.com

Address:
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati
C/o Sree Rama Engineering College (Transit Campus),
Rami Reddy Nagar, Karakambadi Road,
Mangalam (P.O.) Tirupati -517507.
Andhra Pradesh, INDIA

Follow us on: