Team:IISER-Bhopal-India/Attributions
We’d like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who, directly or indirectly, have contributed into making this project a success. Our institute IISER-Bhopal, Founder Director- Prof. Vinod K Singh, Department of Biological Sciences and IICE have provided us with all the support since inception of the project.
We had procured seven BioBrick iGEM parts previously submitted by Team Braunschweig 2014 and Team Brazil 2013 from the Registry for the purpose of our project. We would like to sincerely acknowledge these teams for the same.
Professors
With his expertise in molecular biology techniques, he helped us troubleshoot our PCR reactions. His unconditional and immense support helped us speed up the molecular lab work with precision and maintain our lab records better. He has helped us in lyophilizing our DNA samples for submission.
He gave honest critical reviews about the optimisation of our biosensor model in terms of its detection time, durability and tolerance for temperature, pH and salt concentration during various adverse field conditions. He also discussed the limitations of using RFP as a reporter molecule and suggested to explore other possible, improved fluorophores
Being an ex-iGEMer himself (Uppsala University, 2010), Dr. Vijay gave us initial insights into how iGEM teams work and the extensiveness of funding iGEM projects. He has helped in the development of the metabolic model for MethNote.
He expressed his concerns regarding the use of antibiotics leading to development of multidrug resistance and hence, the sustainability of such a project. He recommended us to check for other pathways in our chassis organism that might affect our designated Promoter-reporter construct.
Labwork
Dr. Sunando Datta (HoD, Department of Biological Sciences) and Dr. Himanshu Kumar (Lab In-charge, Biology UG lab) for providing us with the resources and the departmental UG lab as our workspace for extended hours.
Ms. Latika Agarwal (Project Lab Assistant, Bio UG Lab) for helping us to get started in the lab.
Mr. Preetam Meena and Mr. Sunil Meena (Lab attendants) for helping us around the lab.
Ms. Manali Powar, Mr. Anish Ganju, Mr. Prajwal Bhardwaj and Ms. Rucha Kulkarni (Students) for extending their help to the team in lab work whenever we needed an extra set of hands.
iGEM support
She helped us in ordering the iGEM parts and kit. She made an exception for sending the two inconsistent parts at our request.
Being our iGEM HQ Representative, he helped us clear specific queries regarding the iGEM registry parts and medal criteria along with informing us the important deadlines from time to time.
She joined us under the mentorship program of After-iGEM community. She has helped us understand iGEM’s medal criteria better, conversed with iGEM HQ on our behalf and also helped us troubleshoot some of our wet-lab strategies.Mentorship Reports
Wiki Support
Also an enthusiastic senior, he has invested his skills and hours to help create our wiki page from scratch. Apart from the work, he kept the lab lively when we were trying to adjust to Boston Time Zone by working overnight!
We received immense support from him regarding understanding the technical aspects of our wiki. He also helped us debug the website.
We thank all these students- Sreepadmanabh M & Manav Mishra (chief editors), Sushmita Pal, Radhika Mishra, Gourilekshmi Hari, and Bhushan Thipe for having helped us through several rounds of editing for our content on Wiki Page.
Human Practices
Dr. Neetu Kalra and Dr. Shyam Sunder Reddy (Project Lab Instructors) for judging the ‘Battle of Wits’, the debate competition held on iGEM Day.
Dr. Amit Verma (Senior Scientist, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research) for having critically analysed the project and suggesting alternative ways to approach the problem.
Dr. Dhanyalekshmi Pillai (Assistant professor, Department of EES) for providing her views with respect to practical limitations and future design for MethNote.
Dr. Madhumita Mukherjee (Scientific officer) for providing permission to conduct outreach program for MethNote along with Rashtriya Aavishkar Abhiyan.
Mr. Dhananjay Kumar (Alumni, IISER Bhopal) helped us understand the limitations of our initial work strategy and hence, suggested cloning using viral 2A peptides.
Administrative Support
Ms. Shweta Saxena (Junior Assistant) and Mr. Yashpal Jain (Project Office Assistant) for helping us register our project in the Institute Research and Development office.
Mr. Arun Thapar (Business Development Manager, IICE) for helping us manage the finances of our project through IICE.
Dr. Sandeep Pathak (Deputy Librarian, IISER Bhopal) for helping us cross check all our documents submitted on a fundraising platform for plagiarism using Turnitin.
IISER Bhopal Labs
Our Primary Investigator’s lab has been the backbone in getting most of the documentation work done, receiving orders for us and letting us access services from lab (Thermocycler, 4°C refrigerator, incubator).
Special Thanks to Ms.Rituja Saxena and Ms. Shruti Mahajan for helping us with sequencing concepts and providing the consumables and documents at times when our PI was not around. All the lab members extended full support throughout our project.
Talk about any enzyme, antibiotic, vector or competent cell vial used during the preliminary results and in the due course of the project- the members were of immense help.
Special thanks to Mr. Yogesh Tak, Ms. Chetana Tamadaddi and Ms. Kripa Yadav who were always around to guide us through lab techniques. Ms. Chetana Tamaddi helped us with transformation when we really needed an expert’s hand.
He permitted us to use the plate reader from his lab for the Inter Lab Study. Special thanks to Mr. Akhilesh Kumar, Ms. Sanjana bhattacharya and Ms. Richa Mishra who helped us get familiar with the use of the plate reader and extended full support throughout our project.
He let us use the Apotome microscope for visualising GFP/RFP tagged proteins in yeast. Special thanks to Mr. Santosh for helping us use the Apotome and help us perform western blotting.
Special thanks to Mr. Rahul and Ms. Arpita Yadav for providing us with a few restriction enzymes and GEL/PCR purification kit.
He helped us in contacting the biosafety officer, extending the lab timings for us, promoting our outreach and extended full support throughout our project. The lab has been supportive in guiding us with the availability of chemicals in the department as well as with customs documentation for final delivery of parts via FedEx.
The lab provided us with enzymes and special thanks to Ms. Mansi Gujrati for helping us set up PNK (Polynucleotide Kinase) reactions.
The lab provided us with enzymes and special thanks to Mr. Abhishek Dubey for helping us set up reaction with Antarctic Phosphatase.
Additional Thanks
Mr. Shambhu for making sure our primer order reached us in time when FedEx failed to do so.
Bio-Aid Solutions for helping with delivery of primer orders from IDT and Anti-His antibody from SantaCruz on our behalf.
GenScript™ OptimumGene™ 3.1 for codon optimising our sMMO gene subunits to maximise our protein production in selected chasis organism i.e. P. pastoris.
Mr. Sagar Bhisade for capturing the pictures necessary for our website. He also shot the “Labs Like You” video submitted to iGEM TEC-CEM, Mexico.
Mr. Arjav Jain, Mr. Aditya Prakash Tigga and Mr. Sri Vathsa Golla for capturing pictures in lab and on iGEM day.
Our alumni member Mr. Vaishak KP for providing us with technical information regarding iGEM.
Anoop Kumar Gautam and Akshay Bhadage for designing our new logo.
Crowd funding via Ketto Benefactors: Ms. Arpita Yadav, Ms. Shivani Rath, Mr. Rahul Dhalgarkar, Dr. Lavanya Bhagavatula, Mr. Siddhant S Shetty, Mr. Chakradhar R, Ms. Rituja Saxena, Ms. Sreshta V, Ms. Seema, Ms. Sajith, Ms. Shreeya Sanjay Raich, Mr. Amogh Neelkanth Desai, Mr. Vivek Kumar, Ms. Phani, Mr. Awhan Sarangi.