Team:IIT Kharagpur/Practices
BECAUSE SCIENCE IS FOR THE SOCIETY
POLICY AND PRACTICES
Meetup Writeups
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 initiative 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 you guys are doing. Proud of you guys as an alum of Biotech, IIT Kgp."
SUGGESTIONS:
"I wouldn't buy a detector, as I never had problems with spoiled food not being identifiable as spoiled." "As a food technologist I haven't heard about this. If food processors can put expiry date then what different can GMO do? why will consumers pay extra? Consumer acceptance can be a big problem in India." "Be specific in detecting fungal/bacterial spoilage. Because most of our food of acidic nature is damaged by fungal partners and food with high water activity by bacterial members. So, target a specific group that covers wide food products." "First of all would you pack the spoilage detector in the food packages before being purchased by consumers? Or would you have a spoilage detector for individual consumer's detection for example after opening of the food package? Would it be safe to use? How about disposal? Regarding the iGEM Groningen design in 2012: How would you make an applicable, useful and simple detector for food e.g. in the fridge? If you put your detector into the fridge at time 0, how fast would you know if the food is spoiled or not, regarding the design of your detector. E.g. bacteria based detector needs bacteria to grow and produce certain compound resulting in the detectable colour. Would the lower temperature have an effect on the time of compound production and therefore the spoilage detection? For the best results at the competition, rethink and discuss your application strategy with as many people as possible. Take the critique of the design and try to make it better. Be prepared to answer all of those questions and to defend your application design at the Jamboree (judges are very straightforward with the questions). Good luck with the project! Regards from Tjaša, Wageningen 2014 BananaGuard." "Well 1st of all great work u guys are doing. proud of u guys as an alum of Biotech, IIT Kgp. "If there was an easy, quick and trustworthy biological food spoilage detector how much will you spend to buy it?" I am confused Are u talking about the machine replaceable strips. Please mention. All the best and jeetkeana...." "I wouldn't pay a cent to buy something that will let me know if something is spoiled or not. In my experience (I cook), I have till date been able to detect if a food is gone bad or not pretty effectively. A strip or any other innovation on this arena, I think will not do any good as it is in fact, redundant. Nature has already done this for us. All you're doing is appealing to the eyes, which I believe would not really serve the purpose."Interviews:
Prof. Hari Niwas Mishra
On the 3rd of September, three of our team members interviewed an eminent faculty member of IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Hari Niwas Mishra of the Department of Agriculture and Food Engineering, who is an expert in the field of Health Foods & Nutraceuticals, Innovative Food Processing Technologies and Food Safety & Quality Control. This is how it went: Team: Sir you have been working in this field for about 21 years...can you tell us about the statistics of food spoilage in the country...like how much wood gets wasted every year due to spoilage? Professor Mishra: You see, a few days ago i was reading in the news reports that ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) conducted a recent study in association with CIPHET (Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology), which involved a survey to assess spoilage incurred in food storage, handling,etc. According to the report, 48% of food grains, and 15-18% of perishables get destroyed every year due to food spoilage. Team: Can you tell us about the various techniques that are currently available for detection of food spoilage? Professor Mishra: there are old traditional techniques which include various types of plating methods, and techniques to obtain microbial counts which have been in use since decades. Among the new methods, electronic sensor based techniques are more prevalent. Nowadays, biological kits, for detecting specific pathogenic microbes like salmonella are also available. HiMedia is one such company making biochemical test kits. Team: The acceptability of GMOs by the public is often seen as an issue when a genetically engineered product is released in the market. What are your views regarding the acceptability of our product, if commercialised? Professor Mishra: There has always been a big divide in the Indian society when it comes to acceptance of any genetically engineered product. Equal groups of people are willing to accept and equal groups are against it. Most are concerned regarding the safety of the product, whether it has any side effects or not, since that has never been established in a solid manner in the past. If somehow we can establish that our product is absolutely SAFE for consumer use, then we can surely think of a long term capture of the market. Team: How do you propose we can solve these issues regarding acceptability of our product, if released? Professor Mishra:: We first need to analyse what the consumers want from our product. As in most of the food products, it is the economic and nutritional benefits that they look for...and simultaneously the product must be safe to use continuously. These days, due to high level of adulteration in food products, consumers are always in an apprehending mode and try to avoid new products. But the change has to come at some point. For that, they have to be convinced aptly. Team: Do you think that our product can be easily incorporated into the food quality control industry, given the available practices in that field? what industries can we target? Professor Mishra: yeah, conceptwise, it appears OK. But still those people need to know the exact details of how it works, the pros and cons, disposal issues (if any), which are the substrates on which it works best and several other factors. The stability and userfriendliness of the product are of utmost importance while deciding its integration into the market. You can target the local companies manufacturing analytical instruments at first...they are the ones which can try and introduce your product at a small level and then increase your influence gradually. Eg. Alpha moss, Novozymes, Fox, etc.
Professor Ritwik Kumar Layek
Some of our team members had a discussion with Professor Ritwik Kumar Layek of the Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering Department of IIT Kharagpur. We concluded that there are some enzyme parameters and other enzyme reaction kinetics data which has to be searched from existing literature.
We got to know about some platforms from where we can build our concepts on system engineering and mathematical modelling. This discussion gave us a good review from the perspective of a professor of Electronics background, which was very beneficial. We convey our sincere thanks to him and really appreciate his help and efforts.
Workshops
Institute of Genetic Engineering (IGE):
The workshop at IGE was aimed at spreading the concept of synthetic biology and awareness about iGEM. The students were quite enthusiastic and were eagerly interacting during and after the workshop. We also got a chance to visit their labs and see their work. Most of the students were new to the concept of synthetic biology and hence, were curious to know about its aspects and scope as a research field. Our workshop was followed by a presentation by an M.Sc student of that college, on the topic of synthetic biology only. After the two presentations, we had a fruitful discussion with the students and the professors. They were appreciating our project and were giving valuable suggestions. We told them that we wish to see an iGEM team from their college within the next few years. They were quite welcoming regarding the participation in iGEM. After the workshop, we had a discussion with one of the professors regarding the problem of food spoilage and it’s solutions. We also visited his lab to see his work. He was quite overwhelmed to see our participation in iGEM. He insisted us to keep in contact with their students, so that they can also participate in iGEM within the next few years.
Balarampur High School
Some of our team members went to Balarampur High school to spread awareness regarding food spoilage and synthetic biology among high school students. The students were already aware with the concept of Genetics and were fast in catching up. Our team members explained them about food spoilage and it’s causes. They were taught about synthetic biology and it’s uses in addressing food spoilage. The guide book designed by our team came in very handy to teach them and it also served the purpose to clear their doubts on various related topics. The students were quite enthusiastic regarding the whole concept of gene manipulation. Our members were following quite an interesting and fun-loving way to teach the students. The students were also taught about some ways to prevent food spoilage at their homes. The class lasted for about 1 hour and our members were very successful in converting a boring lecture class into an interactive session for the students.
Guidebook
Our guidebook is an essential tool we created to provide our reader an informative and easy-to-understand content to help them surf through mind-boggling oddities and platitude existing regarding food spoilage. This guidebook is uniquely crafted and designed after huge brainstorming sessions to provide our readers well-curated content from internet, magazines, and journals regarding causes, effects, precautions and symptoms of food spoilage. All the important highlights are covered under different sections, charts and infographics prepared from raw data. This organization has been chosen to make it a modular reading material making each section unique, competent and most importantly useful for the readers. We believe that our efforts would help all our readers by giving them an easy and quick access to Food Safety Practices as a gentle reminder that help exists just a tap on screen away.
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