No project can be completed without the help of people from outside and ours is not an exception. We were lucky to find some really helpful people who generously gave us valuable guidance and assistance from time to time at various stages of project development. Team iGEM IISER Kolkata finds it a privilege to thank them.

Principal Investigators

• Dr. Babu Sudhamalla, Primary Investigator
  He was instrumental in mediating all the official proceedings with the iGEM Headquarters and IISER Kolkata. His patient guidance was helpful in keeping all aspects of the project running smoothly.
• Dr. Sreeramiah Gangappa, Secondary Investigator
  He helped us in troubleshooting many of the wet lab protocols and has been our greatest support system.
• Dr. Dipjyoti Das, Secondary Investigator
  He helped us in improvising our mathematical model.

Team contributions

• Ipshita Gayen
  She actively took part in all bacterial work and made new parts for the registry. She was also part of the collaboration team and as a team leader, made sure everyone did their work on time.
• Pinaki Chanda
  He mainly took part in wet lab involving Leishmania parasites. He also guided the math modelling team by solving conceptual doubts regarding the genetic circuit.
• Roohani Basavaraj
  She was an active member of the Wet Lab, working mostly on bacterial cloning. In the initial part, she worked on sponsorships, editing our proposal and conducting literature search. She was involved in writing Collaborations and Safety pages of Wiki, and also helped in proofreading the Wiki pages. She went to CSIR to interview Dr. Nahid Ali as a part of IHP.
• Urvashi Chitnavis
  She was the leader of HP and was involved in creating activities to integrate human practices and outreach into our project, and organising the various events and interactions. Also, she was part of the wet lab team and helped in cloning.
• Ravi Kiran Putchala
  He was part of the wet lab experiments, he specifically worked on the characterization of the bio-brick parts and nitric oxide quantification in stimulated and Leishmania-infected macrophages. He was also part of the human practices team.
• Diptomit Biswas
  He played an important role in the initial brainstorming sessions and was involved in the Wet Lab experiments.He helped in searching for project topics and formulating the current project idea. Also, he took part in organising human practices activities.
• Priyanuj Bordoloi
  He headed the math modelling team. He modelled the iron chelation and phagocytosis aspects of the modelling. In addition, he helped in human practices by volunteering to go to villages for taking surveys.
• Atharva Paranjape
  He was part of the wet lab, math modelling and human practices team. He interviewed Sourav Banerjee, an expert on Leishmania parasite.
• Aniruddh Deshpande
  He was part of the math modelling team and designed and tuned the nitric oxide sensor in-silico. He has also helped the collaborations team by making the forms for surveys.
• Angel Mary C. T
  She was part of the wet lab team, helping with bacterial work and helped in cataloguing wet lab essentials and writing the protocols for Wiki.
• Abhirami A. G
  She was part of the wet lab team, helping with bacterial experiments and helped in cataloguing wet lab essentials and writing the protocols for Wiki.
• Sumit Garai
  He was one of the members of the wet lab team. Also, he took the responsibility for graphic designing of the logo and our Wiki. He directed and took part in the street play organised in the neighbouring villages, as a part of our HP.
• Pavan Vynatheya
  He designed our Wiki.

Visit Members page to meet the team.

Brainstorming sessions

• Dr. Tapas Kumar Sengupta
  His valuable inputs in the initial critical project evaluation played a very crucial role in giving a shape to the project proposal.
• Dr. Rupak Datta
  Being an active researcher in the field of Leishmania parasite, his experience helped us to decide the feasibility of the project.
• iGEM 2018 team members.

Our support system

• Dr. Sourav Pal, Director of IISER Kolkata
  Dr. Pal has been very encouraging in ensuring that the team and the project does not fall short of any resources required for a successful representation of the institute at iGEM 2019. We are eternally obliged to Dr. Pal for his constant support and encouragement.
• Dr. Mohit Prasad, HoD, Department of Biological Sciences
  He constantly supported us throughout the project by providing us lab space and making sure the team does not fall short of any resources.
• Dr. Partho Sarothi Ray
  Without his valuable guidance and critical inputs in the troubleshooting of the wet lab work, it wouldn't have been possible to complete this project.
• Dr. G. Lekha, Lab Instructor
  Our lab instructor, who constantly guided us through all the basic and advanced protocols of molecular biology laboratory.
• Mr. Debabrata Sutradhar, Lab Instructor
  He mediated the laboratory reagents and consumables orders and took care of all the institute formalities for the same.
• Arunava Seth, who helped us to design all the Leishmania and macrophage experiments.
• Dr. Arnab Gupta and his lab, especially Ruturaj, for providing us the E.coli transformants with Human copper transporter 1 (hCTR1).
• Animish Nilesh Vaze, Diptatanu Das, Hrishika Rai and Pallab Datta
  They were our official advisors and also members of the iGEM 2018 team. Their experience helped us to identify many small errors in the experimental protocol and troubleshoot problems in our mathematical model. They also guided us through numerous official proceedings including the team registration and acquiring funds from the institute.
• Rahul Subbaraman, for helping us in conducting the village surveys, as a part of human practices.
• Kallol Purkait, from the Department of Chemical Sciences and Tamal Ghosh, the Lab Technician, for helping us in conducting Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC).

Lab space

• Department of Biological Sciences, IISER Kolkata, which provided us with lab space and scientific equipment required for the successful completion of the project.
• Dr. Rupak Datta's Lab, who generously provided all the specific facilities required to work with Leishmania and macrophage cultures.
• Dr. Jayasri Das Sharma, Dr. Rahul Das, Dr. Amirul Mallick and Dr. Malancha Ta, who generously allowed us to use their lab equipment.

External support

• Dr. Nahid Ali for giving a detailed insights about the occurance of Leishmaniasis in our country and the risk posed to the society.
• Sourav Banerjee, Senior Research Fellow working in the lab of Dr. Rupak Datta, who gave us valuable insights regarding Leishmania life processes and iron balance mechanisms.
• Aarshi, The Drama Club of IISER Kolkata, for conducting the street play in the villages near the institute, as a part of Human Practices.
• Department of Earth Sciences, IISER Kolkata, for printing the Giant Jamboree poster.
• Aman Punse, for providing us a camera whenever required.

Sponsors

• SnapGene, for free software distributions to the team.
• New England Biolabs, for free distribution of Biobrick assembly kit.
• IDT, for synthesizing and supplying custom made gBlocks.
• Twist Bioscience, for providing DNA fragments.
• IISER Kolkata, for funding the team to participate in iGEM 2019.
• All the people who generously provided us monetary support, by donating on Ketto, a crowdfunding platform.