Difference between revisions of "Team:IIT Kharagpur/Practices"
Satyamag28 (Talk | contribs) |
Satyamag28 (Talk | contribs) |
||
Line 592: | Line 592: | ||
</div> | </div> | ||
</div> | </div> | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
− | + | ||
<h3>Prof. Ritwik Kumar Layek</h3> | <h3>Prof. Ritwik Kumar Layek</h3> | ||
Line 632: | Line 620: | ||
} | } | ||
}).embed("mydiv");</script> | }).embed("mydiv");</script> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <div class="mydiv"></div> | ||
Revision as of 23:04, 18 September 2015
Meetups
True spirit of iGEM lies not in competition but in collaboration. With dawn of synthetic biology,
it became absolutely clear that future of biological sciences lies not in closed gate patenting but
in open source innovation. iGEM teams all over the world organize team meetups with other
teams where discussion, critique and feedback over the each team project is given by all. Such
discussions are extremely helpful as they provide a wide diversity of opinions and filter the
subtle nuisances before Giant Jamboree. Our team was invited for two iGEM meetups one
Indian iGEM team meetup by IISER Pune and other an Asian regional meetup organized by
NCTU, Taiwan. Both of the experiences have been very informative as well as enlightening.
Details of individual meetups are described below.
IISER Pune Meetup July 16-17, 2015.
The IISER Pune iGEM team organized an Indian iGEM meetup during This meetup had
three of the four Indian iGEM teams (for the year 2015) participate in it, namely IIT Delhi,
IISER Pune and IIT Kharagpur. IIT Delhi had sent three representatives of their team, while two
of our team members Harsheel and Rhushikesh represented our team there. During the first day
(16th July), there was an informal discussion session amongst all the teams, followed by IISER
Pune’s project presentation in the afternoon. While the second day (17th July) had the
presentations of our team (in the morning) and IIT Delhi’s presentation in the afternoon.
IISER Pune made a really comprehensive presentation, which left the entire audience in
awe, and in a way left the other teams with no choice but to further improvise their presentations.
All the IISER Pune team members participated and contributed to their extensive presentation,
which had a significant amount of their project modelling data as well (computer simulation
based work). They had also covered good ground with regard to their wet lab work, and had it
divided into three subparts, each handling a particular aspect of the wetlab work. While IISER
Pune wishes to compete in the Health and Medicine track of iGEM, IIT Delhi wishes to compete
in the environment track. IIT Delhi also made a very descriptive presentation of their idea, which
was appreciated by the audience. After each of the team presentations (which typically lasted
about an hour), there were questionanswer sessions held, where the clarity and idea of each of
the teams’ projects were scrutinized.
Very useful suggestions and points were raised for each of the teams post their
presentations, and all the discussions (both formal and informal) were very productive and
propitious for the teams, in general. We learnt a lot about iGEM through this meetup, got to meet
a lot of people, and are confident that the advice and suggestions given during this meetup would
definitely help us give this first attempt at iGEM our best shot.
NCTU Meetup:July 19-23, 2015
This was the third time NCTU organized its own meetup, and this time, it kept it open for all the
Asian iGEM teams. It was organized on a pretty grand scale with 30 teams (from countries like
Taiwan, China, India, etc) participating in it. The two Indian teams participating in this meetup
were IISER Pune and IIT Kharagpur. The option was given to teams to either go and attend the
meetup in person, or to present their ideas via video conferencing (Skype). Accordingly, our
team went ahead with the second option, and was allocated a video conference slot for the
evening (Taiwan Time) of the third day of the NCTU Meetup (21st July).
The main idea behind our team’s participation in this meetup was to get advice and
suggestions from experienced iGEM teams with regard to our project wet lab, policy and
practices (social outreach, meetups, collaborations, lab visits), modelling and so on. The format
of the online conference was 20 minutes for the presentation and 20 minutes for the question and
answer session. Harsheel, one of the senior members of our team gave the presentation of our
project idea, and the questions that followed (which were pitched by the audience gathered at the
seminar room in NCTU, Taiwan) were tackled by some of the senior members of the team, as a
whole. Very valid questions were raised by the audience, and many useful suggestions were
given with regard to how we could improvise our presentation for the Giant Jamboree, and tackle
each of the factors (taken into account by the iGEM judges), so as to give our first time
participation in iGEM the best we have. This meetup was indeed a great learning experience, and
has geared us up for the grand finale at Boston!
Survey Responses:
iGEM mandates organizing of surveys as public outreach practice for all participating teams and
for a good reason. Advancements in Biotechnology in recent years have created a buzz in
blogger communities, newspaper reports and science and technology television shows. A lot of
ideas have faced severe opposition on grounds of ethics, religion and simply uninformed
knowledge. Rise of GMOs in agriculture and medical care brought forward debate on the table
where many raised rejection of these products because of unfamiliar nature and impact of
convoluted ideas presented in scientific fiction. Since all iGEM teams are tinkering with the
biological entities to manufacture artificial life forms which can perhaps be in future transferred
as a routinely used technological platform like smartphones, computers and internet. It is
important that public’s opinion be sought, their contributions considered and their information
gap improved.
Inspired by a plethora of surveys conducted by previous iGEM teams we developed some ideas
of our own. Since our project is based upon development of a household level device capable of
detecting microbial food spoilage which itself functions upon a synthetic bacteria (an improved
strain of E.coli DH alpha). The improvement is attributed to introduction of a single plasmid
possessing a luxRAHL quorum sensing detection system which upon presence of [AHL]
beyond threshold level initiated the transcription of reporter gene and thus determining if food
product in question is spoilt or not.
If we told you we can create artificial organism to detect food spoilage in dairy and meat
products by change of colour, would you like to use it?
If it were an easy, quick and trustworthy biological food spoilage detector, how much would you
spend to buy it?
TO SHOW HOW RELIABLE THE REVIEWS ARE BY THE BACKGROUND OF THE
SURVEY TAKERS
How would you rate your health awareness on a scale of 110 (1: lowest to 10: highest)
TO SHOW WHICH SPECIFIC PRODUCT SHOULD WE INITIALLY TARGET
Which is the most common dairy product you use?
Which product do you generally face the problem of food spoilage?
TO SHOW THE NEED IN THE MARKET FOR OUR PRODUCT
On an average, what percent of your food expenses do you lose each month due to food
spoilage?
How much food products you buy is easily perishable?
REVIEWS BY THE SURVEY TAKERS:
"Great survey!would be very useful ,if installed in food stores like McDonald's and
kfc etc. Good luck!"
"It is a good concept"
"Your intiative is good.it is very useful to all obviously."
"It is a great initiative. Let's hope it solves the problem of food spoilage."
"Good luck iGEM team for your upcoming short innovation"
"Biostrip to detect food spoilage! seems to be a great and innovative idea."
"Its very good idea. We should fund this. Keeping in mind it should be affordable to everyone."
"Well 1st of all great work u guys are doing. proud of u guys as an alum of Biotech, IIT Kgp."