Team:IIT Delhi/publicengagement

iGEM IIT Delhi

EDUCATION AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

The credits for accomplishment of this project goes to the dedication, commitment and enthusiasm shown by a large number of people and parties from multiple disciplines. It gives us immense pleasure and gratification to acknowledge their support and assistance towards the execution of the project.

Dr. Zia Shaikh
iGEM IIT Delhi conducted seminars and lab workshops on synthetic biology in various high schools of Delhi. These workshops were aimed at informally introducing the students to this field. ‘Just like you join together Lego blocks to create structures, you can join together genes to create new biological systems’ was the main theme behind most of our workshops. The session began with the basics of synthetic biology, iGEM, our projects. This was followed by a compendious presentation on ‘Ethical Issues in Synthetic Biology’, which involved discussion on Ethical issues like Bioterrorism, Patenting and Creation of Monopolies, Uncontrolled release, Creating Artificial Life etc. In order to give students a flavor of lab work, we conducted an experimental workshop in their lab. The experimental workshop consisted of simple illustrations and some hands-on experience for them such as Plasmid isolation, Gel electrophoresis, Inoculation, streaking, etc. We further encouraged the school students to make a team of their own and participate in iGEM and assured full support from our side. Finally, we took the feedback and conducted a small survey based on general awareness. The workshops were successful as we could see students really getting excited about the entire idea of iGEM and seemed to be enthusiastic for the competition. In Fact, we received a letter of Appreciation from one of the school (DAV Public School Sector-14, Gurgaon, Delhi). Feedback obtained from the students: 9.35/10 (Total No of students:196)

Prof. Atul Narang (DBEB)
Open house is an annual event in IIT Delhi that is being conducted for the past 13 consecutive years, it aims to provide an insight into path-breaking research work and student projects in IIT Delhi. This year it was conducted on 22nd April. ‘iGEM IIT Delhi’ has been participating since the past four years and this time it was a real treat to the eyes of the connoisseurs. We presented our project to technology enthusiasts, students and colleagues from other technical Institutes, school children, industries and the general public. We also introduced them to synthetic biology and iGEM. It was a great motivation and encouragement to the students, colleagues, and school students to develop a greater interest in the field of Synthetic Biology. Especially school students were excited to participate in iGEM as a ‘High School’ team from India.

Prof.Shaunak Sen (Department of Electrical Engineering)
Prof. Shaunak Sen has assisted us profoundly with Microscopes, Plate-readers, and protocols. We would also like to thank him for his valuable advices on the idea Square Wave Generator, especially during the brainstorming sessions at the beginning.

Prof. James Gomes (Kusuma School of Biological Sciences)
We would like to greatly acknowledge Prof. James Gomes for his invaluable guidance towards the idea of the project. He has also assisted us with mathematical analysis, design and construction and possible topologies of the project.

Prof. Ravi Elangovan (DBEB)
Prof. Ravi Elangovan gave us insight to High resolution Methods in Biotech, he was always available after classes to discuss and help us out with the doubts and difficulties. He also helped us understand the basics of fluorescence microscopy which turned out to be useful for the project.

Dr.Vivekanandan Perumal ( Kusuma School of Biological Sciences)
Dr. Vivekanandan is an assistant professor at KSBS, IIT Delhi. He helped us in developing our cloning strategy and provided us with various lab equipments at crucial times.

Dr.Ashish Misra (DBEB)
Dr. Ashish Misra is an assistant professor at DBEB, IIT Delhi and is a Professor mentor at iGEM IIT Delhi. He joined the team in 2016 and has helped us in troubleshooting our project and gaining more insight into it.

Dr.Sumeet Agarwal
Dr.Sumeet Agarwal is an assistant professor in Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi. He has been pivotal as far as the guidance of System Biology was concerned.

Ms.Anamika Chauhan
Tour of Stalls is IIT Delhi’s annual club orientation, which has an annual footfall of nearly 1000 students. This orientation was attended by the first year students and high school students. We ensured proper exposure of first-year students to synthetic biology and its multi-disciplinary aspects by setting up a stall at the Tour of Stalls. The students were also shown the team video, which excited them for joining the club.

Mr. Saurabh Parikh
Saurabh Parikh is a fourth year B-tech student from DBEB. He helped us right from introducing to the field of Microfluidics to designing, constructing, using microfluidic chambers. We really appreciate his remarkable support for the project.

Mr.Omkar Vinchure
Mr. Omkar is a PhD student at DBEB, IIT Delhi and has been a mentor for iGEM IIT Delhi since 2015. He assisted us in performing advanced lab procedures and guided us throughout the whole project. He also played a crucial role in the team selection. Moreover, he allowed us access to his lab facilities, especially, the Nikon Eclipse Ti-S Fluorescence Microscope.

Mr. Arun Thapa
Mr. Arun is a Phd student at DBEB, IIT Delhi and has been a mentor for iGEM IIT Delhi since 2016. He played a significant role in Wet lab experiments and troubleshooting and gave us crucial advices at critical times.

UG Lab
A Ph.D. student, Mr. Mahendra Sahare, doing a humanities project under a Supreme Court lawyer, Dr. Naveen Thayyil, has been in collaboration with iGEM IIT Delhi for the past two years. Together, we have worked on the aspect of ‘Ethical Scientific Practices’. Also, on his recent visit to IISER Mohali, he came back with a collaborative offer for iGEM IIT Delhi to mentor IISER Mohali and help in the establishment of iGEM club there. On our return from the Giant Jamboree 2016, our team members gave a presentation scheduled there, initiated their team and thereafter our team mentored the iGEM Mohali team.

Mr. K Vinay (RNA-2 lab)
Being a former iGEM member of 2015 and 2016 iGEM IIT Delhi team, he was exploring Pastures anew, despite nearing the end of his academic tenure at the institute, he was always available for brainstorming and troubleshooting sessions. We would like to thank him for his valuable advice and support.

DyCoBS
Mr. Venkat and Mr. Abhishek have assisted us in this lab.

Molecular Motors Lab
Mr. Sourabh Parikh helped us when we needed access to molecular motors lab.

Mr.Balbir Singh
Tryst, IIT-D's technical fest, is one of the largest and most successful technical festivals across India. It seeks to bring together the world’s leading scientific minds and budding enthusiasts and witnesses an annual footfall of over 40,000. iGEM team IIT Delhi set up a stall and conducted the event ‘Biomaniacs’ a brainstorming quiz on biotechnology which was aimed at encouraging and promoting synthetic biology through interesting and creative ways to do this.

iGEM Team IIT Delhi sent its representatives to the Indian iGEM meetup which was held at IISER Pune and was attended by 9 iGEM teams from India and iGEM Peshawar (Pakistan, was on Skype conference). The purpose for this was to discuss projects and strategies among the teams and help each other with problems that were being faced. The possibility of collaboration was also discussed among other topics. The event ended with a friendly dinner. Being the most experienced team from India, iGEM IIT Delhi gave a good presentation at the meetup to other teams in terms of experience and well discussed and interacted among upcoming iGEMers.

Mr. Lavlesh Bhanot
We conducted four sessions on ‘Ethical issues in Synthetic Biology’ in a course of Professional Ethics & Social Responsibility (NEN100) at IIT. We addressed various Ethical Issues like Bioterrorism, Patenting and Creation of Monopolies, Uncontrolled release, Creating Artificial Life etc. in our sessions which was followed by an interesting ‘Case Study Discussion’ session wherein students were divided into groups and allocated the case study and asked to come and discuss the case study and identify the concerned Ethical issue, and draw the conclusions with the rest of the class. Finally, we took the feedback and conducted a survey which consisted of the questionnaire related to Ethics in Synthetic Biology. Feedback obtained from the students on the workshop conducted: 8.3/10 (No of students:85)

Mrs. Charu Maini
Mrs. Charu Maini is the Principal of DAV Public School, Sector 48,49, she played a significant role in spreading our message to other schools in Delhi. We thank her for the assistance.

Mr. Tarun Gulyami
Mr. Tarun Gulyami is the Head of Biology Department, DAV Public School, Sector 14, he showed his keen interest towards the workshop conducted and was interested to send India’s first High School team at iGEM. We appreciate his support and enthusiasm.

Profs. at IIT Delhi
We would also like to thank Prof. Sangeeta Kohli (Department of Mechanical Engineering) And Prof. P. V. Madhusudhan Rao (Mechanical Engineering Department) for their support to conduct human practices at Institute level.

Mr. Sunil
It’s a course common to fresh entrants of IIT Delhi, it has an important role to play in terms of orienting and exciting students in the subject of engineering. iGEM IIT Delhi gave its orientation in one of the sessions of this course. Professors and around 850 undergraduate students attended the orientation. The main objective is to introduce students to synthetic biology, enlighten them about the products based on research in this field and how these products have an enormous impact on our day to day lives.

Prompt enterprises Pvt Ltd.
It is a student body in IIT Delhi which deals with matters related to academic affairs and co-curricular activities. iGEM IIT Delhi held its orientation on Date:_____ . It drew a huge crowd which included students from technology clubs of various colleges apart from IIT Delhi. Our work on various genetically engineered biological systems their practical applications were presented to them. An enthusiastic response is received from the audience.

Snapgene
We would also like to express our gratitude towards Snapgene for providing us access to the software. It turned out to be of immense use for designing the biological parts.

Previous Sponsors
We thank our previous sponsors for their valuable support: Mahindra, Coding Blocks, DHL, Medanta, Woodland, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India.

Wetlab
iGEM IIT Delhi held a seminar for a group of first-year students of DBEB who had just taken admission into IIT. The students were introduced to the field of synthetic biology and were told about its tremendous potential. Then, students were taken to the lab and a first-hand experience of various simple processes like agarose gel electrophoresis, streaking and spreading were provided. The students were shown the entire lab. Many of the students were enthusiastic about taking up synthetic biology as a career as the event ended.

Computational Modelling
Abhilash Patel, Tarun Mahajan, Kshitij Rai, Pulkit Srivastava, Shreya Johri.

Human Practices
Milind Zode, Tanuj Garg, Kshitij Rai, Pulkit Srivastava, Ishank Pahwa, Nipun Gupta.

Wiki Development
Pratyush Maini, Divya Choudhary.

Creative, Design and Content Development
Divya Choudhary, Pratyush Maini, Kshitij Rai, Varuni Sarwal, Preeti Raj, Abhishek Kumar, Shreya Johri, Tanuj Garg, Milind Zode.

Marketing
Tanuj Garg, Nipun Gupta, Ishank Pahwa, Pratyush Maini, Divya Choudhary, Pulkit Srivastava, Sashi Kalan, Milind Zode.

We thank our Institute wholeheartedly.

Last but not the least, we are extremely grateful to International Genetic Engineering Machine Foundation for creating such an incredible platform 'iGEM Competition' where multidisciplinary students get the opportunity to work and build genetically engineered systems using standard biological parts(BioBricks) to solve real-world challenges. Moreover, it brings all such students and their projects together annually which essentially is paramount in many aspects like the development of research and interest among students in the field of synthetic biology, ultimately, creating a positive contribution to the world.