Attributions

Team IISER Kolkata wishes to extend its immense gratitude and sincere thanks to the following people for their love and support to the team and project in several different ways:

• Dr. Tapas Kumar Sengupta, Head of the Department of Biological Sciences
  Dr. Sengupta was majorly influential in starting the iGEM movement on IISER Kolkata campus. He helped the idea blossom in its nascent stages and provided all required official assistance to convince the institute about participating in the competition.
• Dr. Partho Sarothi Ray and Dr. Arnab Gupta, Principal Investigators Guiding the Team
  Dr. Ray and Dr. Gupta have been actively guiding the team since its inception. The learning experience under these PIs has been extremely enriching and memorable for the student members of the team. We thank them for the same.
• Members of Dr. Ray’s Lab
  Mr. Abhishek Guha, senior PhD researcher, helped us at all stages of the projects in experiment design, troubleshooting, analyzing results etc.
  Mr. Ravi Kumar, PhD researcher, helped us learn using the plate reader instrument required during characterization and interlab experiments of the project.
  Mrs. Reshma Sharma, PhD researcher, helped us with the use lab reagents whenever required.
  Ms. Sharanya, Int. PhD student, helped us in setting up and trouble-shooting RT-PCR to amplify and isolate desired gene from the wild.
  Ms. Binita Goswami, Project student, helped us with the use lab reagents whenever required.
• Members of Dr. Gupta’s Lab
  Mr. Santanu Das, senior PhD researcher, helped us in troubleshooting PCR, SDS PAGE and few other protocols. He also made the lab instruments and reagents accessible to the team whenever we asked.
  Mr. Raunak Dutta, MS student, helped us with the use lab reagents, instruments and apparatus whenever required.
  Mr. Ruturaj, PhD researcher, helped us in steps that required PCR troubleshooting and SDS-PAGE.
• Mr. Debabrata Sutradhar, Lab Instructor
  Mr. Sutradhar has trained the team at basic as well as advanced skills required in molecular biology labs. He has taken the care of safety and security of the team members while working in wet lab. We sincerely thank him for his commitment to the project.
• Dr. Sourav Pal, Director of IISER Kolkata
  Dr. Pal has been very encouraging in ensuring that the team and the project does not fall short of any resources required for a successful representation of the institute at iGEM 2018. He agreed to fund the project with a sufficient amount to sustain the endeavours of the team and the project requisites. We are eternally obliged to Dr. Pal for his support and love.
• Mr. Bhaskar Kumawat, Team Leader, IISc iGEM Team
  Bhaskar has been closely working with and guiding us at every step in the iGEM journey of our team. Without Bhaskar’s presence and directions, it would have been difficult to steer the project to the point of current accomplishments. A big thanks to Bhaskar.
• Dr. Rahul Das and his lab members
  Dr. Das’s lab has always welcomed us to use any of their instruments and reagents as need be. We are especially grateful towards Mr. Kaustav Gangopadhyay, PhD researcher in this lab for his words of guidance and help in cases of emergency situations.
• Dr. Supratim Dutta and his lab members
  Dr. Dutta’s lab has always welcomed us to use any of their instruments and reagents as need be. We are especially grateful towards Mr. Sushant Kumar Sinha, PhD researcher in this lab for his presence and enthusiasm to help the team at all times of needs.
• Labs of Dr. Amirul Mallick, Dr. Rupak Dutta, Dr. Mohit Prasad, Dr. Punyasloke Bhadury, Dr. Malancha Ta
  Dr. Mallick and his lab provided us with the electroporation facility in one of our experiments.
  Dr. Prasad’s lab agreed to provide us a few reagents and restriction enzymes when the team was short of them. Mr. Sudipto from Dr. Prasad lab provided important insights into troubleshooting our experiments in the final steps of the project.
  Dr. Rupak Dutta and his lab members provided access to their lab and reagents when need arose.
  Dr. Malancha permitted the team to use the nanodrop facility in her lab whenever need arose.
  Dr. Bhadury’s lab helped the team with required data and information regarding arsenic contamination in West Bengal and also provided us required information on the microbiology of arsenic resistant bacteria.
• Dr. Raja Shunmugam and his lab members
  Dr. Shunmugam’s lab helped us quantify arsenic concentrations in samples collected during human practices. The lab also helped with required information and literature survey on Arsenic contamination in West Bengal and existing techniques to combat the problem.
• Department of Biological Sciences, IISER Kolkata
  All our professors in the Dept. of Bio Sciences were very accessible to guide us in every aspect that we contacted them for. They allowed us free access to their lab facilities and permitted to use their reagents when the team was short of them.
• Mr. Sachin Pandey, SAC GS (Academics), IISER Kolkata
  Mr. Sachin Pandey, SAC GS (Academics) in the initial phase efficiently coordinated to convey the request of participating in iGEM from the enthusiastic student members to the authorities and officials of the institute.
• Dr. Geetanjali Sundaram Lab, Dept. of Biochemistry, Ballygunge Science College, Calcutta University
  Dr. Sundaram’s lab provided us to use her lab for one day under the guidance of senior members in the lab to isolate total RNA content from S. pombe required to obtain the HMT1 gene for cloning. We are thankful to her for the help.
• Dr. D N Guha Majumdar, DNGM Research Foundation
  Dr. Majumdar provided us with detailed understanding of the Arsenic poisoning problem and its intricate relationship with socio-economic scenario in the society. He gifted the team with a set of books that summarize his research findings on this very topic. Interaction with him was very important to broaden our perspective to look at the problem. We are highly indebted to him for enthusiastically guiding us on this.
• Pixel Photography Club, IISER Kolkata
  The members of photography club at IISER Kolkata responded to our call for a need of photographer during team photoshoot sessions and human practices field visits. To name a few, Ms. Sadhna Hansda, Mr. Aman Punse and Mr. Amlan Dutta were a great help for capturing iGEM moments in the camera frame.
• Ek Pehal Initiative, IISER Kolkata
  We cannot miss to mention Ek Pehal and its volunteers, especially Mr. Avinash Kumar and Mr. Devashish Pande who guided us regarding Human Practices field visits, data collection methodologies on such survey trips and for making arrangements for our field visits. Thanks to team Ek Pehal.
• Mr. Rick, PhD Scholar, Biophysics and Molecular Dynamics Group
  Mr. Rik accompanied the team on one of our Human Practices visit and advised us about scientific methods of data collection during such surveys and field trips.
• Sponsors
  SnapGene, for free software distributions to the team.
  GeneBridges, for gifting the team with gene deletion recombinase kit.
  New England Biolabs, for free distribution of Gibson Assembly kit.
  IDT, for synthesizing and supplying custom made gBlocks.
  DBT, Govt. of India and IISER Kolkata, for funding the team to participate in iGEM 2018.