Attributions

Work by the team

The team participated in Interlab study by iGEM 2017 and submitted the data. Aarti, Avani, Zakhiya, Jyothish and Charvee participated in transformations and measurement and compilation of data using plate reader.
In growth curve experiments of DH5α and MG1655 strains of Escherichia coli, Aarti, Avani, Zakhiya, Jyothish and Charvee participated in measurement of OD at different time points.
Aarti Kejriwal and Avani Koparkar were involved in the Hijack module and building of a modified version of the synthetic oscillator by Stricker et al. They were also in charge of organising the India Meet-up 2017 (Regional). Avani handles the twitter account of our team, and Avani and Aarti handle facebook page of our team.
Zakhiya PC and Jyothish Sudhakaran were involved in the Detection module which included the expression of chromophores under a constitutive promoter. They also attempted to clone dual promoter of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Escherichia coli. Zakhiya was also in charge of media and making of team video. Both of them helped in making our team logo as well.
Charvee Ravichandran was involved in Termination module which included building a quorum-sensing based technique leading to termination of growth of bacteria and/or lysis of cells.
Yash Joshi was involved in modelling of the Hijack Module based on models of synthetic oscillators given in papers by Stricker et al. (2008) and Hasty et al. (2002). He was also responsible for getting our private sponsors.
Saumil Shah was in charge of wiki design, T-shirt design, banner design, poster design and making the final presentation.
In our collaboration with IISc, Bangalore iGEM team which included haemocytometry of yeast samples, Aarti, Zakhiya and Jyothish were involved in sample preparation while Jyothish and Zakhiya were involved in imaging of samples.
Jyothish carried out most of the T7 bacteriophage experiments along with Aarti and Charvee, while the entire team helped in plaque counting.
Jyothish made the questionnaire for the human practice survey form.

General support

Prof. K. N. Ganesh, Director, IISER-Pune wholeheartedly supported the project and made sure that monetary transactions for travel, consumables and stay were smooth.
Dr. Sanjeev Galande, for talking to the students during India meet-up 2017 (Regional)
Dr. Nishad Matange, for talking to the students during India meet-up 2017 (Regional)
Dr. Sandeep Krishna, NCBS for talking to the students during India meet-up 2017 (Regional)
Robert Ramirez Garcia, for talking to the students during India meet-up 2017 (Regional)
Dr. Neelesh Dahanukar
UG lab TAs: Poornima Raveendran, Prabha Desai and Manjiri Kekatpure
Vivek Kanadi, Pradeep sir, Science media center, IISER-Pune
IISER-Pune housekeeping staff
Siddharth Adithyan: BS-MS student for designing the logo
Himanshu Lagachu: BS-MS student for making the team video
Kaustubh Amritkar and team : BS-MS student for arranging Skype session during India Meet-up 2017 (Regional)

Project support and advice

Dr. Chaitanya Athale: PI, advised us throughout the project. He oversaw and helped in plate reader protocols, PCR protocols, cloning and provided useful insights in modelling of the oscillator.
Kunalika Jain: PhD student of Dr Chaitanya Athale who advised us in various experiments and helped us in techniques like gel electrophoresis and plate reader
Yash Jawale: Former member of 2015 iGEM IISER-Pune team who advised us throughput out the project, helped us in experiments like haemocytometry, and also assisted in microscopy, plate reader, gel electrophoresis. He helped in debugging the program simulating the model of the oscillator. He also participated in organising the iGEM India meet-up 2017 (Regional)
Snehal Kadam: Former member of 2015 iGEM IISER-Pune team who helped us in troubleshooting lab protocols. She also provided insight into promoting our project via facebook and twitter accounts.
Robert Ramirez Garcia: Former member of the iGEM 2016 Évry team, in France, who taught us experiments in phage kinetics and host dynamics and also advised us on our project. He visited our institute and helped us perform all the T7 Bacteriophage experiments for a week.
iGEM 2015 team of IISER Pune for conceptualizing and providing basis for our project.
Saptarshi SohamMohonta, first year, BS-MS student for making the 3D model of our prototype (digitized)

Fundraising help and advice

Our institute, IISER-Pune sponsored the team registration, consumables as well as travel and registration of one team member.
Jayant Joshi helped us in contacting several potential private sponsors.

Project advisor support

Dr. Vineeta Bal, IISER-Pune: Secondary PI, who helped us fine-tune our project with her expertise in TB diagnostics. She also supervised the organization of India Meet-up 2017 (Regional)
Dr. Nishad Matange, IISER-Pune
Dr. Amrita Hazra, IISER-Pune
Dr. Vineeta Bal
Dr. Chaitanya Athale
Kunalika Jain, Athale lab
Yash Jawale, BS-MS student, Athale lab
Neha Ketan, Athale lab
Snehal Kadam, BS-MS student, Athale lab
Tanmaya Sethi, BS-MS student, Athale lab

Difficult experiment support

Robert Ramirez Garcia: Phage engineer and former member of the iGEM 2016 Évry team. He taught and assisted us in experiments in understanding the kinetics of infection with the T7 bacteriophage and its host dynamics. He also designed genome-minimised conditionally replicating phages for the amplification, delivery and expression of our synthetic construct in Escherichia coli (through a λ-like enterobacteria phage) and Mycobacterium spp (through a TM4-like mycobacteriophage).

Human Practices support

Lupin ltd for scheduling a project presentation and providing insights into our project
Anushree Chaphalkar, for arranging our first Human Practices talk with school students from Kolhapur
Karavaan, IISER-Pune for arranging student talks related to synthetic biology and our iGEM project.
We thank all iGEM 2017 teams from India as well as iGEM 2017 team from Peshawar, Pakistan for attending the India meet-up 2017 (Regional) and actively participating in discussions. We would also like to thank them for their constant support on various social media platforms and the invaluable experimental advice they provided.

Get In Touch