It was a trigger and dream for all of our team members to be a part of the biggest scientific community and right now when we complete our first phase of the project, we realize the fulfilment of our dream which was made possible by the stupendous and selfless efforts from various personalities. Undoubtedly without their patient ear, steady hand and precious care nothing would have moved so far. Sincere and honest thanks to everyone – for being a part of our dream and making that to be true.

The Path that leads us: Our Mentors

The confidence showered by Prof. K.V.R Chary (Director, IISER Berhampur) made us move ahead overthrowing limitations. We extend our sincere gratefulness to Prof. Yogendra Sharma (Dy. Director, IISER Berhampur), who not only motivates us all time but provides the team with every necessary requirement. The sole belief of our Institute in our Project paved our way to reach our dream platform.

The light: Principal Investigators

The entire journey started with the way lighten up by Dr. R Selvi Bhararthavikru – our Primary Project Instructor. The dimension and rhythm of this project was shaped with her guidance and timely supervision. The contribution made by Dr. Sandeep Chatterjee (Secondary Project Investigator) and his lab members made a tremendous impact in the computational aspects of the project.

The Helping Hands: An immense collaboration

We acknowledge Dr. Malay Kumar Rana for instructions in molecular docking and other simulations. Dr. Sunita Patel (UM-DAE CEBS, Mumbai) showered us with immense assistance and the classes and training by her helped us to do the Molecular Docking Simulation.

We extend our wishes to Dr. Vinay Bulusu (Assistant Professor, IISER Berhampur) for his generous and curious suggestions on the wet lab part, especially in imaging and fluorescence quantification.

We are grateful to Dr. Prabhat Singh (Scientific Officer, IISER Berhampur), Dr. Bal Krishan (National Post-Doc, IISER Berhampur) and Dr. Jose Sebastian (Assistant Professor, IISER Berhampur) for Scientific and resource assistance. The remarkable help from Jeetendra Mohapatra and Akash Jain guided us to get in touch with different companies and organizations.

We were fortunate to interview and interact with eminent personalities from Medical, Research and Governmental officials; their comments and inputs helped us to conceive the project in multiple dimensions. Dr. Rindu Ravendran (Medical Doctor, Kerala), Dr. Blessy Varghese (Medical Officer, IISER Berhampur) shared their medical experiences and epidemiological aspects regarding Dengue infection.

In the research field, the Interviews of Prof. Sudhir Krishna, (Professor, NCBS Bengaluru) and his lab members especially Dr. Arun Sankaradoss and Dr. Meenakshi Iyer helped us a lot to get a broader idea on research areas of Dengue.

The interaction with Dr. Gulam H Syed (Scientist, Institute of Life Sciences) Dr. Bharath Srinivasan (Researcher, AstraZeneca) helped us a lot to understand the drug development process.

Turning impossible to possible: Public Engagement

As part of Human practices, we were proud and happy to distribute Mosquito nets, Face masks, and Awareness pamphlets to 70 Families in and around Berhampur were effectively coordinated by Madan Mohan Padhy (Student Affair’s staff, IISER Berhampur). The timely involvement of Satya Siva Shankar Rao K (Assistant Security Officer, IISER Berhampur), Uttam Das (BS-MS Biology undergrad) and Amit Kumar Padhi (Transportation staff) helped to conduct the public engagement smoothly along with a strict compliance of COVID-19 protocol. The outreach activities were possible with the crowdfunding campaign which was supported overwhelmingly by various known and unknown names and we are grateful for their contribution.

We remember you always: The small and big contributions

With the pandemic forcing many of us to leave the campus, it is because of the stupendous support by many selfless individuals , we remember Tribhuvan Parida (Research Scholar), Aswin Vijayan (BS-MS Physics undergrad), Subhasish Halder (Research Scholar), Tanya Verma (Research Scholar), and Rabi Shankar Pal (Research Scholar) for their small and big support in various activities throughout the project time. The designing and effective promotional activities were well coordinated by Manish Dwari (BS-MS Biology undergrad) and Sadanjeet Kumar Kar (BS-MS biology undergrad).

As we believe that to reach out each and everyone effective science communication can play a pivotal role and this thought gave shape to the Synthetic Biology Blog - “Syntillate”. This venture gained a wonderful reputation by the beautiful articles from the authors and we were extremely delighted with our friends and colleagues who turned as the authors. We take a moment to thank Harshita Mahajan, Kunjulakshmi R, Kanika Phagna, Shiviya Raina, Anuska Mohapatra, Mayurakshi Das (all are BS-MS Biology undergrads), Nabendu S Mishra, Gayathry Thampi (both are BS-MS Physics undergrads), Ankita Misra (BS-MS Chemistry undergrad), Akankshya Sahu, Pratyush Mishra (BS-MS undergrads). Along with this, we also thank our integrated PhD Scholars Rohan Nath, Nishad Gosavi, Sunil Dhasmana and Gautham Srinivasan who contributed to Syntillate within a few days of joining IISER Berhampur.

A productive partnership: Helping us to move ahead

We are grateful to various organizations/companies who were happy with our project and came forward to support financially our activities. SnapGene and MatLab joined our journey by providing free licenses to their premium tools and Eppendorf as well as Pattanaik Scientific financially lifted the team. We are highly indebted to Genscript (MolecularCloud) for providing us a platform to convey our thoughts to a larger audience via the interview session offered and we value the monetary contribution from MolecularCloud. We also extend our many thanks to New England BioLabs, Twist BioScience and Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) for supporting us.

The Dreamers: Team members

It is the teamwork which has brought us to this platform/stage and the true team spirit which helped us to navigate through all our hurdles. The contribution by each team member has helped in effective utilization of the pandemic enforced lockdown.

It is because of each and every member with their unique skill sets which helped us to divide the work and accomplish the first phase of the project effectively. This division of individual tasks led each member to explore the project in a more broader perspective and we are all extremely proud of what we have learnt by these explorations.

The specific area where the members have contributed most:

• Sukanya Chakraborty

  - Wet Lab , Science Communication , Designs , Safety , Documentation



• Gokul Bhaskaran

  - Wet Lab , Science Communication , Sponsorship , Public Relation , Documentation



• Vinayak S

  - Animations , Poster Designs , Graphics , Video Editing , Human Practices



• Harish Kumar Senapati

  - Modelling , Data mining , Molecular Structural Construction , Interview session coordinator



• Chitrak Bhowmik

  - Modelling , Documentation , Analytics , Presentation



• Sudev Pradhan

  - Wiki page , Modelling , Epidemiology , Simulations , Coding , Data Analysis



• Gyanaranjan Parida

  - Team Lead , Social Media , Collaboration coordinator , Human Practices , Crowdfunding



• Deepjyoti Satpathy

  - Modelling , Simulations , Epidemiology , Data mining , Analytics



• Gokul Madhav

  - Wet Lab , Science Communication , Notebook Documentation , Safety



• U Abinash Patro

  - Dry Lab , Documentation , Language Translation , Promotional Campaigning



• Tanishta Bhattacharya

  - Modelling , Science communication , Analytics



• Neehar Verma

  - Coding , Wiki page , Simulations



• Kingkini Roychoudhury

  - Wet Lab , Modelling , Science Communication , Illustrations , Designs



• Prachiti Vithole

  - Human Practice , Designs , Presentation , Expert Interviews



• Sayantani Biswas

  - Creative Head , Logo , Wiki page , Animations , Designs

We realize our dreams were given wings, by many people including eminent scientists, administrative staff, family and friends. We have enjoyed interacting with all these wonderful people and in bringing to you our first phase of our first ever venture at iGEM. Thank you each and every one for being with us.