The IISc, Bengaluru team has won the gold medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) contest held in Boston, USA.
iGEM stands for International Genetically Engineered Machines. As the name suggests, it is an international synthetic biology competition, mostly for undergraduates, though some high-school and over-graduate teams also participate in their respective categories.
iGEM has been encouraging students for the past 10 years to work together to solve real-world challenges by building genetically engineered biological systems with standard, interchangeable parts.
The team triumphed over 300 others from around the world who participated in the competition, the six-member core team from IISc. developed a new method to purify recombinant proteins — that is, a protein enclosed in a gene — by using naturally-occurring gas vesicles isolated from Halobacterial species of bacteria, which thrives in salt-rich environments. In liquids, gas vesicles help bacteria float to the surface, and using biotechnology and gene cloning, the team was able to purify protein by tagging them to these vesicles.
The team optimized the protocol by using various chemical means to achieve maximum efficiency. They were successful in demonstrating the new method in multiple ways possible. The results were validated by classical biochemical tests like SDS-PAGE, Western
blotting and also by sophisticated new age techniques like scanning electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. This project was named as project iFLOAT.Similarly, the team designed a device, Growth Curve and Optical Density Device (GCODe), to ascertain microbial growth through real-time optical density measurements that can even be read through a smartphone.
It is a portable, automated device to measure the absorbance of any given liquid. This design is the first of its kind where microbial growth analysis can be performed in an automated and error-free manner.
The device has the features of real-time optical density measurement. It is easy to assemble and it can even send the readings to a smartphone. Most importantly, its performance is on par with high end commercially available spectrophotometer at a two orders lesser price, it said.
The team comprising Raj Magesh, Sai Padma Priya, Kunal Helambe, Rajas Poorna, Sharath K. Menon and Rohith K.M.S. worked on the projects for over six months.
They were mentored by Dipshikha Chakravortty, Utpal Nath from Department of Microbiology & Cell Biology, and Akshay Datey from Biosystems Science & Engineering at IISc.
