Team:MITADTBIO Pune/Collaborations
IISER-KOLKATA
As a team of first timers, we had a lot of questions. Thankfully, a more experienced team , IISER-Kolkata , stepped in to take the role of our mentor. Having conducted Skype calls with them, and through our numerous Whatsapp interactions, we definitely learned a lot from our conversations together.
IISER-BHOPAL
IISER Bhopal were the hosts this time for the All India iGEM Meetup in July. We managed to see the work of many teams from India, and had our own project critiqued and commented on. It served as a great precursor to the Giant Jamboree, and gave members of our team some much needed experience in presenting our project using a poster and a presentation. We were awarded with the "Best Poster" prize and gain some great insights on how to improve our presentation from the iGEM Asian ambassador.
IISER-PUNE
Team IISER Pune India 2019 are working on developing an alternative tool for directed evolution so that it can be performed faster and more conveniently. The tool is a mutagenic plasmid that can attain tunability of mutation rates in E.coli using blue light as an external physical inducer. As a proof of principle, the team wanted to test its performance by evolving a heavy metal remediating gene to higher efficiency. They chose Lead as studies showed that Lead pollution was highest in one of the local rivers of Pune. They decided that it was a good idea to analyze water samples taken from water bodies across the country to get an idea of the lead pollution across the country. They asked all Indian iGEM 2019 teams to bring water samples to the All India iGEM Meetup.
We participated in this collaboration by bringing water samples from our local water body, the Khadakwasla Dam and giving them all the necessary information that they required.
INSTAGRAM COLLAB WITH STONY BROOKS
The Stonybrook team's Instagram Challenge was a true gem of an idea. Combining social media with quirky and interesting challenges, it gave us some much-needed fun time while working in the lab. Running experiments and coming up with innovative ideas on how to uniquely tackle the next day's goal at the same time truly tested our multitasking skills. And not all of the challenges were just fun and games. Day 1 had us introduce our project in a span of a few Instagram posts while allowing us to raise awareness about Plastic Menstrual Waste. Day 3 involved Agarart which, as we found out, is a pretty underrated art form and allowed us to learn a new technique. We found it to be a fun and engaging collaboration, allowing us to see the work and project introductions of different teams and showcase our own.
SDGs CHALLENGE
This was organized by the iGEM Costa Rica Team. This collaboration aimed to promote the Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations. Challenged teams were to map their project with the help of 1 to 4 SDGs, while explaining how their project matched those SDGs. We chose number 3, “Good Health and Well-Being,” and number 11, “Sustainable Cities and Communities.” Through our awareness program, we are also contributing to Goals 4, 5 and 10. Our collaboration efforts are a step in the right direction for Goal 17:Partnerships for the Goals!!
Our project aims to create a bacteria capable of breaking down the Plastic present in Menstrual Pads, which are a huge source of pollution and disease if disposed of carelessly.
OTHERS
To assess the level of awareness regarding menstrual waste and stigma associated with periods, our team conducted a small survey on the iGEM platform to get an insight from a global perspective. We had teams from across the world respond to our world. They include:- IIT-Madras, IISER_Kolkata, VIT_Vellore, Humboldt_Berlin, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Athens, Freiburg, KU_LEUVEN, UI_Indonesia, Wageningen_UR, Saint_Joseph, Montpellier, Moscow, NTU-Singapore, Stony_Brook, Dresden, UiOslo_Norway, US_AFRL_CarrollHS. However we remembered the iGEM instruction saying just conducting a survey is not necessarily a collaboration. We saw the truth in that, and realised ourselves that simply collecting data on a pertinent topic isn't useful in itself, if we do nothing about it. So, as you will see, we decided to analyse and then feed back the results to our survey takers, to educate them just how grave this crisis really is.
Here are the results to the survey.
Apart from the noteworthy collaborations mentioned above, the MITADTBio team had quite a lot of fun taking part in several others too. Filling out surveys for the University of Alberta team, and the Virginia team was fun, and we hope it contributed in some way to the groundbreaking work we are sure they are doing. The Hamburg team's “World Map Abstract” was especially interesting. It made us think how we could explain admittedly in-depth and scientific words so that individuals from non-scientific backgrounds could understand what we had to say. It was a challenging task, but learning how to explain something easily will be useful for our presentation skills too!!
Apart from the noteworthy collaborations mentioned above, the MITADTBio team had quite a lot of fun taking part in several others too. Filling out surveys for the University of Alberta team, and the Virginia team was fun, and we hope it contributed in some way to the groundbreaking work we are sure they are doing. The Hamburg team's “World Map Abstract” was especially interesting. It made us think how we could explain admittedly in-depth and scientific words so that individuals from non-scientific backgrounds could understand what we had to say. It was a challenging task, but learning how to explain something easily will be useful for our presentation skills too!!