The All India iGEM Meet
By Viraj Pithva | 15 August 2024
The quintessential synthetic biology competition, iGEM, sees participation from all around the world. Teams from India are no exception to this and have left their indelible marks each year by coming up with some of the most fascinating and mind-bending research work on real-world problems. Every year, before The Grand Jamboree, the teams from India meet up in July to exchange ideas, conduct mock jamborees, receive constructive feedback and guidance, and ultimately refine their work before the official event. This initiative is known as the All India iGEM Meet (AIIM).
This year, the All India iGEM Meet was hosted by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, from 26 to 28 July 2024. The event was organised by the IISc Bengaluru Team, under the guidance of the iGEM India Ambassadors L Srimathi, Hana Lukman and Sasha Thomas.
The event was spread across three days, and consisted of several exciting talks by eminent professors and researchers spanning fields of Systems Biology, Biophysics, Computational Biology, Microbiology, Neuroscience and Cancer Biology. In addition, there were three sessions organised by iGEM ambassadors. iGEM IISc also organised a panel discussion on Women in STEM, and several fun events were also a part of the line-up. Of course, there were judging sessions and poster presentations, and served as a golden platform for Indian teams to interact, discuss, collaborate and learn from each other.
The participating teams from India that attended the AIIM are listed below:
AptalXero – IISc Bengaluru
CalciCapture – IIT Bombay
IMP – IISc Software
SugarCare – IIT Roorkee
CosmoBiome – IIT Madras
E.sole i – IISER Kolkata
PETal – IISER TVM
CFastDX – SVCE Chennai
PlastiCOPS – REC Chennai
Iravi – VIT Vellore
CAAPI – MIT-MAHE
Among these, IISER Kolkata and IIT Roorkee joined the event online. RVCE Bangalore, hoping to join iGEM in 2025, also attended the event to gain exposure.
Day 1: 26 July 2024
The first day of AIIM began with the opening address by iGEM IISc's team leader, Subhanan. Subsequently, the former Dean (UG) of IISc, Prof. Balagi R. Jagirdar, delivered the welcome address. He went over why iGEM’s collaborative as well as encouraging platform makes it a one-of-a-kind competition. He was hopeful that ideas proposed by iGEM over the years continue to enter industry, and asserted that the All India iGEM Meet is an excellent opportunity for Indian teams to cross-fertilize their ideas.
Dual Use Research Concern (DURC) Workshop
This interactive session was taken up by the iGEM India Ambassadors Srimathi and Hana. It focused mainly on practising research as a responsible scientist, covering the topics of biosecurity, biosafety and dual-use concern. They talked about Xylella fastidiosa and discussed the biosafety flaws using a case study of a previous iGEM team. This was a good place to introduce the concept of DURC – how research conducted for the benefit of some sort could be easily misused for adverse impacts – often relevant in the fields of life sciences.
The audience was asked to fill out a survey to gauge their understanding prior to and after the session. Furthermore, they talked about the two step verification mechanism where sensitive and potentially harmful research clauses are removed before it becomes openly accessible to people. There was a brief anecdote shared on the USSR’s hazardous work on anthrax. The ambassadors concluded the talk and thanked the crowd.
Microbes, Microbes Everywhere – Not a Niche to Spare!
This was followed by a talk by Prof. Dipshikha Chakravortty, renowned microbiologist at IISc. She talked about the history of microbes and their fantastic biological interplay that has made life what it is today. Some light was shed on the anatomy of bacteria and how various factors affect it. A particular case of S. typhi was shared and how it negatively impacted the Aztec population. This bacterium is fostered in vacuoles – small cavities in cells. She discussed strategies for combating these bacteria. She concluded her talk by mentioning a book that was published by 2019’s iGEM team at IISc.
Synthetic Biology From A Physical Perspective
Dr Shashi Thutupalli from NCBS, Bangalore was the next addition in the series of talks lined up for AIIM. He started by recounting various milestones in synthetic biology. He mentioned that much of SynBio is engineering, and he had come into the field with a manifesto and proposal to bring physics into the subject. He highlighted the difference between active and passive matter. Inanimate systems show behaviour like living systems in terms of physics, but they do not demonstrate characteristics exclusive to biological systems. He elaborated on how evolution is the best engineer in biology, and how using it as a tool, Dr Shashi was able to create synthetic organisms and could study the physical aspects of them.
On The Metastasis Of Ovarian Cancer
Dr. Ramray Bhat took charge of this talk and started by discussing the characteristics of cancer cells and their origin. He briefly mentioned the two types of ovarian cancer cells: moruloids and blastuloids, and talked about the transition of these cells to different environments and the breaking down of tissue matrices. The distinct behaviour of the two types of cells illustrates the heterogeneity of cancer cells. He explained that no cell type is better than the other, it's simply a matter of using different strategies. He encouraged the audience to think about the origin of these cells and whether one type arose from another.
Computational Biology Workshop
In a world where interdisciplinary aspects of subjects have become so important, computational biology clearly cannot be left neglected, and hence the members of the IISc Software team organised a workshop on the same.
Anirudh Gupta presented a visualization of proteins through computer software like PyMOL. He encouraged the spectators to follow his instructions to explore the protein molecules in their own devices. Those who engaged with him learned about the display and colouring of proteins and the procedure of differentiating between two protein molecules. The effects of mutations on simple molecules were understood using the software.
Following Anirudh, Susmit Roy gave a short presentation on molecular simulations. He started by formally introducing terms in statistical physics. Brute force, Monte Carlo and molecular dynamic simulations (MDS) were the few ways of going about this process. He mentioned how with the wrong initial conditions, you may end up with your system blowing up. The criteria to be checked before running the MDS were recited, and people were advised to not use all the data directly as MDS always provides average quantities.
Using VLSI Principles and DNA To Arrive At A Neural Network
AIIM also featured a short presentation by Dhruv Gupta, ex-iGEMer, fourth year undergraduate at IISc Bangalore, and the Director of the JRD Tata Innovation Support Center. He interacted with the crowd about their experience thus far. He spoke about genetic circuits and combining them with principles of VLSI (very large scale integration) to arrive at BioBricks. He also elaborated on the requisite systems engineering processes to create such a system.
Ribosome Heterogeneity
Prof. Ravi Mudashetty, advisor to the IISc iGEM Team, spoke about his work on Ribosome Heterogeneity and the Fragile X Syndrome. Ribosomes are the protein factories in the cell, responsible for reading a sequence of mRNA (messenger RNA) and synthesising a protein based on the information. However, not all ribosomes can synthesise all proteins. Prof. Mudashetty explained that Fragile X Syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by a mutation in the gene for the FMRP protein. He gave the students a flavour of his research by explaining how FMRP plays a role in differential methylation of ribosomes - that is, adding methyl groups to sequences of the RNA that makes up ribosomes - and how this is essential for the ribosomes to take up specialised functions, for the normal functioning of the cell.
The events were followed by a fun game of SynBio pictionary, to help the students wind down. This marked the end of Day 1 of AIIM.
Day 2: 27 July 2024
The second day of AIIM began with the Judging Sessions. The teams presented their project in the prescribed schedule and received valuable feedback from the judges and the ambassadors. The judging panel was a hybrid one, with panelists present online as well as offline. Dr. Lavanya Bhagavatula from Anvaya Biotech and Dr. R Selvi Bharathavikru graced the event in person, while Dr. Preeti Srivastava, Dr. Onkar Date and Dr. Shruti Sridhar constituted the online judging panel. The iGEM Ambassadors Srimathi, Hana and Sasha were also a part of the panel
Ocean Of Possibilities
The founder of Sea6 Energy, Ms. Sri Sailaja Sori found her entrepreneurial journey budding during her undergraduate years when her team from IIT Madras participated in iGEM. Their company is driven to develop the world around them sustainably. Saijala believes that mindfully using seaweed is one way to tackle this problem. She mentioned that there are plenty of market opportunities related to seaweed, and talked about how important it is to learn and innovate at a faster pace alongside collaborating with other people. The biotech segment has always required perseverance for any product to reach the market. Their research team has been working to diversify their seaweeds to make up for the lost traits upon continuous vegetative propagation. She further discussed IP aspects by comparing and contrasting pattern patents with product patents and concluded the talk.
Fireside Chat on Women in STEM
Avani and Manya from the IISc iGEM Team had a conversation with Dr. Sanhita Sinharay and Dr. Attreyee Ghosh from IISc, about the current situation of women in STEM fields.
Avani and Manya were curious to know about the inspiration the panelists had had to pursue a career in their fields, and who their role models and mentors had been. Dr. Attreyee recounted her time in high school and how Sudipta Sengupta – the first Indian woman to travel to Antarctica – was a huge inspiration to her, whereas Dr. Sanhitha always had an appetite for knowledge and explored various fields throughout her career - moving from Chemistry to Biology. She had various role models in her life, each prominent during a different stage of her life.
Avani and Manya further asked if the panelists could reason out why among STEM fields, a lot of women choose to go into life sciences as compared to other areas. Neither of them had a definitive answer and raised some possibilities as to why this may be. The next question tried to address the importance of cultural background shaping and influencing one as a person. Both agreed that their supportive families and academically driven environments helped them nurture their worldviews and encouraged them to pursue a career in science. Consequently, science made them think logically and brought more discipline into their life.
Finally, Avani and Manya asked for the panelists' views on the significance of science communication, to which they said that they enjoy giving talks to younger students and are always happy to see them getting inspired. The chat was concluded after taking more questions from the audience.
Sci-Tech Quiz
Following the day’s events, Shloak Vatsal, ex-iGEMer and third year undergraduate at IISc hosted a SciTech Quiz, which was also open to general students. It consisted of thirteen questions with a maximum points score of 16. The trio of Durga, Aarav and Anurag bagged the first prize by scoring 11 points. This marked the end of Day 2 of AIIM.
Day 3: 28 July
The final day of AIIM 2024 had more exciting talks and a poster presentation session in store.
Story Telling and SciComm
The host for this talk was L Srimathi, the iGEM Ambassador. She started the discussion by showing some paintings and asserting that posters convey a story, which no one would know without the media. SciComm is about the same storytelling but in a scientific setting. It’s the process of simplifying complex ideas and serving digestible chunks of it to people who seek to understand the world around them.
Srimathi gave examples of Curie’s paper and Darwin’s phylogenetic tree as objects that contain a whole story within themselves. She went on to give tips on how to effectively communicate science once you’ve thoroughly understood it yourself. Visual information is often the key to fruitful communication. Srimathi expressed her disapproval of information gatekeeping within academic circles. After giving more pieces of advice, she took questions from the audience and concluded her talk.
Poster Presentation
Following this was the poster presentation event that all teams had been looking forward to. This was an opportunity for the teams to showcase their work. There was a total of nine posters and the crowd was traversing the hallway for about two hours. The spectators took their time to understand every poster and asked questions to clarify their ideas about the project. This event was a success as teams and non-participating spectators got to understand the projects in comfortable detail.
AptalXero, the IISc team, took the opportunity to present their idea, much like other teams, and used it to gain insight into what people knew about Alzheimer's and dementia. They explained their idea in a simple manner without using complicated jargon, and sought feedback and views from the attendees, which they aimed to integrate into their project.
Deep Mutational Scanning and Heat Stable Vaccines
Prof. Raghavan Varadarajan, advisor to the iGEM IISc Team, spoke about his work on using deep mutational scanning to develop thermostable vaccines. Vaccines today need refrigeration and cold storage, and the practices followed worldwide are highly non-uniform. Deciding to use which molecule in the vaccine is a very important decision.
Using site directed mutagenesis, Prof. Varadarajan explained, one can change amino acids at a specific site in a protein. This can help us create a mutant library which we can screen and deep sequence, and subsequently analyse for stability - since mutations can enhance protein structure stability. Such a compilation would be useful to design vaccines that can be stored in room temperature and are stable after administration into the body. Interestingly, Prof. Varadarajan mentioned that for deep sequencing, one doesn’t have to go through the entire sequence, and we can get the necessary detail just based on the barcode sequences.
Insights by Aditya K Ammembal
Aditya was the IISc iGEM 2023 Team Lead, and is an advisor to the 2024 Team. Their project was titled MetraMorpheus, and they had worked on the treatment of endometriosis. He shared his experience with iGEM and asked the currently participating teams what they expected out of this, to which one of the teams answered that they hoped to understand how actual research works. Aditya shared that his initial expectation was to win, but that ultimately led him to lose sight of what he could’ve learned. He emphasized that the point of iGEM was to let yourself feel a sense of discovery and how you build on each of your failures. His final piece of advice was that one should be clear with what they want. The field chooses you, you never choose the field.
Snippets Of Computing On COVID
Prof. Debnath Pal, PI of the IISc Software Team, gave insight into the evolution and transfer of the coronavirus. SARS-COV 2 is a beta coronavirus. Prof. Debnath explored the possibilities as to why SARS-COV 2 is contagious. Several propositions were put forth in an attempt to explain this. He tried connecting the virus’ lifespan, size, easy transferability, appearance and high spike protein binding affinity to the contagiousness. There are a lot of pathways for the virus to enter the host’s systems. He went on to discuss the mechanical aspects of the virus’ ability to fuse. He concluded the talk after taking questions from the audience.
Fireside Chat: Varsha Jaisimha
The host for this chat was the iGEM Ambassador Sasha Thomas who introduced Varsha. Varsha was one of the iGEM judges in 2023, and has subsequently continued to be a part of the iGEM community. She stated that your experience in iGEM helps build a lot of soft skills that are important in today’s world. iGEM provides you with amazing networks and this networking is a powerful tool while looking for job opportunities. She advised the teams to use iGEM to explore things that are not generally taught in school and lab courses. She concluded the chat by wishing the teams the best of luck.
Closing Session
The IISc Dean (UG) Prof. Prabal Maiti shared a few words with the students. He was very excited about iGEM, and mentioned that this is a good platform for ideas to be translated into something tangible. He wishes the Grand Jamboree to be fantastic news for all the teams present.
The event concluded with the announcement of the results and accolades from the judging sessions:
Best Human Practices: MIT-MAHE
Best Engineering: IISER TVM
Best Presentation: IISc Bengaluru
Best Impact: IISc Bengaluru
Best Overall: IISER TVM
The vote of thanks was delivered by Parth Kumar, Human Practices Coordinator of the IISc iGEM Team, and the chief coordinator for AIIM 2024. With this, AIIM came to an end, and all the teams took a group photograph with the ambassadors in front of IISc's iconic Main Building.
The All India iGEM Meet was a resounding success, and was well-received by the participants. They appreciated the IISc iGEM Team's consistent efforts in setting up a fruitful conference, which was a massive learning opportunity for all the teams. AIIM once again proved to be an excellent platform for students to interact with each other, learn together and receive valuable feedback, in anticipation of the Grand Jamboree. Team AptalXero from IISc Bengaluru is grateful to have been giving the opportunity to host this iconic event, and is truly humbled to be able to help out all the Indian iGEM teams in their iGEM cycles. We hope that the All India iGEM Meet fulfils its deemed purpose and improves India's representation in iGEM abroad.
