Team IIT Roorkee truly believes in what Lewis B. Ergen once said, “The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team.” Following the ideology, the team looked up numerous collaborations to learn and grow as a team. Since iGEM also believes in promoting team spirit and teamwork, we collaborated with fellow iGEM teams, college groups, and the scientific fraternity. These collaborations were a great experience in building knowledge and exploring the unexplored.

NSS

Contributing to Society with National Service Scheme, IIT Roorkee (NSS)

The chassis we have chosen for expression of our plasmid construct is Escherichia coli BL21 DE3, which carries the T7 RNA polymerase gene that can direct high-level expression of cloned genes under the control of the T7 promoter. This is a common lab strain used routinely for protein expression, and is a non-virulent strain. BL21 does not carry the well recognized pathogenic mechanisms required by strains of E. coli causing the majority of enteric infections. It is considered to be non-pathogenic and unlikely to survive in host tissues and cause disease, and hence would not pose a health threat if it escapes the lab.

The aim of collaborating with this prestigious group of the college was to reach out to more people, especially underprivileged and special sections of society (deaf children), to spread awareness on the issue at hand, i.e., Antimicrobial Resistance. Under this collaboration, various events and competitions were organized, namely, webinars for school students of Uttarakhand (India), Quiz Competition for the special students of Anushruti Academy for Deaf (AAD), awareness through official social media platforms of NSS IIT Roorkee - Mythbusters (in our official language 'Hindi'), and review report on AMR especially antibiotic policy framework and regulation on an ethical and scientific level.

The team's satisfaction by interacting with the children was immeasurable, and this was a source of inspiration for us to work harder for the betterment of society.

IISER BHOPAL

Mentorship with team IISER BHOPAL

IIT Roorkee is debuting in iGEM 2020 this year. So, preparations for the final Jamboree were a bit hasty; coming to our help IISER Bhopal elaborated on the nitty-gritty of starting a new iGEM project and understanding the competition format, resources required, and the roadmap to follow. They provided us with mentorship and guidance for our debut project through regular checkpoints and discussion on idea development, defining problem statements, and making it more localized. They guided us on how we should keep everything documented and have a backup for all the project aspects. They advised us on Human Practices and Social Media activities and guided us towards starting the Experiments, Software, and Modeling.

We also participated in their social media activity “SUGAR RUSH Challenge,” in which teams had to put up a collage of the delicious sweet-dishes (made at home during lockdown period) on their stories and after which they told us about Diabetes. It was an excellent learning and fun-filled experience.

AIIM

Hosting the All India iGEM Meetup (AIIM)

We hosted the All India iGEM Meetup 2020 in collaboration with IISER Bhopal, IISER Berhampur, BITS Goa, IISER Tirupati, and MIT Manipal, which was sponsored by Promega. This event was conducted from 31st July to 1st August 2020, witnessing a participation count of fifteen potential teams from India itself apart from the hosting teams registered for this competition (Not all of these teams have participated in iGEM 2020). The event had a series of talks by scientists from multiple fields, project presentations by participating teams, 'Fireside chat' sessions with iGEM alumni, and many more. The review and suggestions from experts made us look into our project more deeply. This helped us overcome the technical difficulties of our project and improved the aspect of human practices as well. Also, the Machine Learning workshop by our team promoted the role of technology in Synthetic Biology. Interactions and collaborations with hosting iGEM teams were great and fun-filled experiences, contributing to the event's huge success.

Global Meetup

Participation in the iGEM 2020 Global Meetup

iGEM HQ hosted the first-ever global meetup for all the participating teams to connect, collaborate, and celebrate the ever-progressive field of Synthetic Biology! The meetup was organized in the month of August 2020, with exhilarating events to give an amazing iGEM experience to the participating teams.

Our team participated in the “Team Spirit: Poster Session” hosted by iGEM Thesselay, through which we got a chance to introduce our team in a unique manner. We had an incredible experience introducing our team story, members and hosting a Machine Learning - Workshop to spread the thought of amalgamating Biology and Technology to an advantageous extent.

IISER Tirupati

Interactive Project Discussion with IISER Tirupati

As it is rightly said: "Coming together is the beginning, Keeping together is progress and working together is a success." After having to interact with team IISER Tirupati in the German Meetup, we arranged an interactive session to discuss each other's projects. In this session, both the teams discussed the technical details of their project, especially modeling. We got some useful insights from the competing team regarding MD Simulations and modeling while we tried working out the protein interactions for the latter team. In all, it was an extensive collaboration that prompted us to look further into our project.

iGEM RUM

Accepting Social Responsibility with #Envirospeaks by iGEM RUM

Truly said, "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed." This greed has resulted in the ever-deteriorating situation of the environment, making it unfit for the survival of the coming generations. To support the cause and spread awareness, our team participated in the collaboration hosted by team iGEM RUM - #Envirospeaks, where we made a collage indicating the pollution scenario in India and provided some statistics for the same. We understand our responsibility towards mother earth, and here we are to give our share to a better future.

iGEM Egypt

Collaboration - iGEM AUC Egypt

As this quarantine period locked everyone in their homes, it has shown the importance of human relations, which emerged as one of the essential lessons that how much people near us matter in our lives. These feelings heightened our gratitude for our social circles, and decided to acknowledge everyone we can. Starting with our Mentor for this year’s iGEM project, we participated in the collaboration “Thank You Mentor” by iGEM AUC Egypt. This beautiful collaboration helped us thank our Mentor, Darshak Bhatt, for being a constant support system for the team and guiding us through thick and thin.

IISER Berhampur and CCU iGEM

Survey with IISER Berhampur and CCU iGEM

We helped Team IISER Berhampur and Team CCU Taiwan collect data for the spread and cause and other dengue factors by filling up their Global Survey. They aim to provide therapy and cheap diagnostic kits for dengue, respectively. So, we circulated the survey form in our public fora to increase the awareness about dengue in the people. The questionnaire also expanded our team members' knowledge and enlightened us on the seriousness of the problem.

iGEM UPCH Peru

Transforming our world - iGEM UPCH Peru

This year we want to highlight the importance of science in society, not only as a knowledge resource but also as a developmental tool to solve various problems. So to say, we believe that our project contributes to specific goals of sustainable development adopted by the General Assembly, United Nations, to be accomplished by 2030. Following this, we participated in a project by the team iGEM UPCH Peru and told them about the SDGs targeted under our project.