iGEM Project - Cellfiefuge

• The iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines) competition is an annual, worldwide synthetic biology event that brings together students from diverse backgrounds to design and build genetically engineered systems using standard biological parts. In 2016, I co-initiated the first iGEM team at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India.
• Our iGEM project aimed to cut infrastructure requirements for biomanufacturing initiatives by engineering bacteria that can autoinduce protein overexpression and autoaggregate when production is complete, replacing the need for centrifugation of large cultures.
• More in our poster summarizing the project: iGEM Project Poster
• An article summarizing our experience as the first team from the institute and how our efforts paved the way to future teams that have since won awards and special mentions for their work can be found here

Fundraising efforts by the team that I contributed to:

• iBEC Grant for Indian iGEM Teams, 2016: Grant of Rs. 1,000,000 from Department of Biotechnology (DBT) through the iBEC competition, 2016 for the Indian iGEM teams.
• India Alliance (Wellcome-DBT) Travel Grant, 2016: Grant of Rs. 600,000 from India Alliance (a collaboration be- tween Wellcome Trust and DBT) to travel to the iGEM Giant Jamboree, 2016.
• Research Grant from Karnataka Government, Department of IT, BT and S & T, 2016: Grant of Rs. 600,000 from Karnataka Government, Department of IT, BT and S & T to fund research for iGEM competition, 2016.