Attributions - iGEM Peshawar 2016

Attributions

Andrew Hessel

Andrew is a futurist and catalyst in biological technologies. He is one the leaders and great contributor to Synthetic Biology.

We thank him for giving us generous amount of time from his busy schedule. He not only uplifted our spirits and discussed the positives of our project, but also pointed out some of the negatives and helped us in stamping them out. He also suggested us some valuable strategies on how to best carry out human practices.

Dr. Muhammad Fahim

Dr. Fahim is a Metabolic Engineer and a Professor at Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Peshawar. He has been involved with us from the very beginning; he was in the panel that selected the 12 candidates for the iGEM team.

He also helped the team in short–listing various project ideas that we pitched. Furthermore, his workshop on Trends in Life Sciences got us familiarized with ethical issues and environmental impact of GMOs.

Prof. Muhammad Hamid Zaman

Prof. Zaman is HHMI Professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health at Boston University. He is actively engaged in bringing quality engineering education in several developing nations. He is currently involved in setting up biomedical engineering departments at universities in Kenya, Zambia, Uganda and Ethiopia.

We thank him for giving us time out of his busy schedule, for motivating us, and for writing a brilliant piece about us in the Express Tribune .

Dr. Johar Ali

Dr. Johar is the Head of Genomics Science Centre at RMI Peshawar. He is the only Pakistani who was the part of high profile Human Genome Project. He works in the areas of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology but his specialty is in Cancer Genomics.

We had an inspiring session with Dr. Johar. He shared some motivating tips to be successful in life. He also gave a brief introduction of GMOs and the related ethical concerns.

Dr. Natasha Anwar

Dr. Natasha is a virologist and a molecular biologist by training. She did her PhD from Imperial College London and also holds a PGD in Bioethics.

We thank her for being helpful and giving us time out of her busy schedule. We had an informative Skype session with her in which we discussed all bioethical concerns related to our project.

Dr. Mukhtar Ullah

Dr. Mukhtar is an Associate Professor at NUCES FAST Islamabad. He is a skillful programmer and bioinformatician with expertise in mathematical modeling, simulation, and signal processing.

He helped us in mathematical modeling by pointing us to various resources that made it easy for us to understand mathematical modelling and simulation of biological systems.

Prof. Zabta Khan Shinwari

Prof. Shinwari heads the Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He is the winner of the 2015 UNESCO Avicenna Prize for Ethics in Science.

Dr. Zabta discussed the ethical issues related to our project and gave us valuable advice on how to solve them.

Muhammad Siraj

Siraj is an entrepreneur and the creator of mobile app, Holla. He also works at AIESEC — an international non–profit organization that provides young people with leadership development, and cross–cultural internship and volunteer exchange experiences across the globe.

Siraj shared his marketing experience with us and gave us useful tips on how to sell our project and enhance our social media presence.

Salman Ahmad

Salman Ahmad is a communication expert and a co–founder of Peshawar 2.0 — a social enterprise aimed at building a startup community in Peshawar, the capital city of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa.

Salman helped us interview all twelve iGEMers to select the top four that would best represent the team in Boston.

Faaiz Ahmed

Faaiz is Social Media Trainer at Women Digital League and also Community Manager at Blimp Digital Marketing, Peshawar.

He gave us some important tips and tricks on how to have a stronger social media presence and establish ones' own Brand using social media.

Carlos Alejandro Meza Ramirez

Carlos has graduated in Biotechnology Engineering from Tecnologico de Monterrey Estado de Mexico Campus. In the year 2014, he created and was the first leader of the iGEM team of his university. During his academic studies, he was selected to participate in a Synthetic Biology Project of one the most important investigation centres of Mexico — CINVESTAV. At present, he works as a biology and chemistry professor in middle school grade and as a coordinator of maintenance of public swimming pools at Ixtapaluca's government.

He set out to become an an agricultural entrepreneur after finishing his undergraduate studies. Ever since his iGEM years, Carlos has never stopped helping other teams develop with their projects. This year, he briefed team Peshawar on assembly methods and iGEM in general, and we are thankful to him for his support and advice.

Adnan Fazal

Adnan is an Education Management Professional with rich experience in the education sector, working with renowned organisations including the British Council. He has worked extensively on education projects involving schools, colleges, national and international universities. Presently, he is working as the STEM Outreach Coordinator at Institute of integrative Biosciences, CECOS University, Peshawar.

We are grateful to him for helping us with our human practices by connecting us with the educational institutes and taking care of all the arrangements.

Abida Zulfiqar

Abida holds an MPhil in Immunology and Virology from The National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad. She is currently a full–time Research Associate at IIB working on the systems biology of the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

Abida helped us in general lab techniques and assisted us in performing different laboratory protocols. She also helped us interview all twelve iGEMers to select the top four that would best represent the team in Boston.

Humaira Akhtar

Humaira is a Lecturer at the Institute of Integrative Biosciences and a Research Associate in the laboratory of Dr. Faisal Khan where she works on the network biology of Hepatitis C virus. Humaira received her MPhil degree from Agriculture University Peshawar where she investigated the role of various Brassica genotypes in bioremediation of heavy metals from contaminated soil.

Humaira trained us in basic lab tools. She also helped us in preparing our stock solutions and optimizing lab protocols.

Abdul Wasay

Abdul Wasay is a graduate of IM|Sciences and has spent the last few years with multinational organisations as an HR expert. Currently, he is working as Community Manager at Institute of integrative Biosciences, CECOS University Peshawar. He is passionate about developing and engaging the biotechnology community across KPK through innovative and interactive capacity building programs.

Wasay helped us in capacity development of our team by organising training on communication and leadership skills.

Rabail Durrani

Rabail is a secretary at International Society for Computational Biology, RSG Pakistan. She is currently studying at the National University of Science and Technology and doing her research in the field of Health Biotechnology.

She was with us for a week helping us out in molecular biology tutorial, boosting our energy, and constantly promoting our team on social media.

Muhammad Uzair

Uzair is a Biotechnology graduate at the Institute of Integrative Biosciences. He is also a General Secretory at International Society for Computational Biology, RSG Pakistan.

Uzair gave us hands–on practice on how to operate various lab equipment. He also guided us on lab safety issues.

Zia ur Rehman

Zia ur Rahman is a doctoral student at Center of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB), University of Punjab where he is involved in developing a recombinant drug for targeted therapy of cancer.

We are thankful to Zia for his support and advice in our lab work.

Muhammad Ayaz

Ayaz is an Assistant Professor at CECOS University. He is an M.Phil from University of Peshawar and is currently doing his PhD from Hazara University.

We thank him for giving us time out of his busy schedule and helping us with the chemical reactions, reagents and assays needed for our test gases.

Muhammad Waqas

Muhammad Waqas holds an MS degree in Biotechnology. His research focuses on Molecular Dynamic Simulations and Molecular Docking.

Waqas helped us in modeling and simulation. He briefed us about GenoCAD and other modeling and simulation packages.

Team METU Turkey 2010

In iGEM 2010, METU Turkey developed an 'E-CO Sensor' — a bacterial sensor with enhanced dynamic range for detection of carbon monoxide using E.coli. The CO–sensing module in our device is based on the promoters pCooF, pCooM, and the transcription factor CooA they developed in 2010.

We would like to thank Cihan Tastan and Dr. Can Ozen for their help and support when we faced a major stumbling block.

Team Technion Israel

Team Technion has been very helpful to us in various aspects of iGEM competition. They made significant contribution in our mathematical modeling and lab protocol optimization. They reviewed and modified equations, and fine–tuned our modeling parameters. They also translated system equations into Matlab code for simulation as none of us were well–versed in MATLAB. They provided us the time frames for lab work. They were generous to share lab protocols and helped us troubleshoot the steps that weren't yielding any results.

Team Vilnius Lithuania

Team Vilnius gave us an overview of iGEM Competition and its different aspects. They shared ideas about human practices and public outreach. They elaborated the iGEM lab work in quite detail, which helped us in making a detailed experimental plan and schedule.

Team IIT Kharagpur India

Our collaboration with the IIT team has been limited to Skype sessions. We shared insights about effective human practices. We discussed construct designs and exchanged thoughts on improving it.

The Dawood Foundation

The Dawood Foundation is an educational foundation in Pakistan whose main focus is to support and promote educational initiatives in the field of science, technology, and research. This year, they organized 'Magnifi-Science' — a three–day science fair of gigantic proportion in Karachi where we set up our 'Bio–Machines Lab' and shared Synthetic Biology with almost 4500 students, teachers, parents, and other members of the community.

We would like to thank the Dawood Foundation and Ms. Sabrina Dawood for supporting our endeavour and providing us with the space and opportunity to spread SynBio awareness at such a scale in Pakistan.

Team XMU China

XMU China, a team from Xiamen University, provided a platform for exchange of information for iGEM teams by launching a newsletter. We shared our project details, human practice activities, and our contact information in the newsletter. We have collaborated with teams who published their project information in it. We thank them for making collaborations easier and for inviting us to be a part of it. The newsletter can be found here.

We were fascinated by their project idea that dealt with antibiotic resistance. Since a lack of public awareness plays a key role in exacerbating this problem, we helped them gather data about public knowledge and experiences related to antibiotic use.

Directorate of Science and Teachnology

The Directorate of Science and Technology (DoST) was established in December 2006 under the Department of Science & Technology and Information & Technology, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. DoST has been mandated to promote and develop science and technology in every sphere of life in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa can rightly take pride as it is the first province to have created a directorate for science and technology.

DoST provided the funding for iGEM Peshawar 2016 team.

Institute of Integrative Biosciences

The Institute of Integrative Biosciences (IIB) is a cross–disciplinary life sciences institution that offers world–class degree programmes and undertakes cutting–edge research in different areas and at the interfaces of biological sciences and technology. The IIB is a constituent institute of CECOS University of IT and Emerging Sciences, a leading player in engineering education for 30 years. IIB was established in August 2014 and offers a comprehensive undergraduate programme in biotechnology and postgraduate programmes in Bioinformatics and Biotechnology.

IIB hosted the iGEM Peshawar 2016 team.

Muhammad Adil Salim

Our instructor and iGEM Coordinator, Muhammad Adil Salim, is working as Undergraduate Research Coordinator at the Institute of Integrative Biosciences. He was in charge of, well, basically everything. From our safety training to refresher courses, lab materials to food and transportation, he made sure every day was smooth sailing. Nothing short of a superhero, he kept the team together, hard at work, and highly motivated through thick and thin. His efforts to give us electronic media attention was the big push for our public outreach.

Faisal F. Khan

Dr. Faisal Khan is our Principal Investigator of iGEM Peshawar. Dr. Khan is the Assistant Professor and founding director of Institute of Integrative Biosciences. He is the man behind the show. He completed his promise of iGEM team from Pakistan. It was he who put Pakistan on the map of iGEM. Furthermore, he approved funding for this project from the Govt. He gave us the privilege to inaugurate the newly established state–of–the–art biology lab of his institute with iGEM research. His integrative skills of biology, statistics, innovation, and business helped us at every step of the project from marketing to the recruitment of the team, from lab work to Human practices, and from poster design to computational modeling. He gave us hope when everything seemed impossible. iGEM team Peshawar would not have been possible without his efforts.

Adnan M. Niazi

Adnan Niazi is Secondary Principal Investigator of iGEM Peshawar. He is lecturer at Department of Electrical Engineering, CECOS University. Adnan was also involved in recruitment process of the team. He is genius, creative, full of professionalism, and works the smartest way one can imagine. He reaches to the pinnacle of his job. He was responsible for all the technical tasks that required computer programming. He is also our wiki manager and UI/UX designer. Our wiki page is proof of his artistic and creative skills. He also supervised all the modeling work. He polished our poster design and presentation skills, and introduced us to the whole new world of gifs and animations.

Muhammad Ali

Ali was the team leader. He kept track of the all our work and communicated with the coordinator and the PIs. He was responsible for collaborations with other iGEM teams. He designed some of our IDT parts and was also responsible for the lab safety. He also did much of the proof-reading of our wiki pages.

Asif Hanif

Asif was available for all the tedious lab work at any time. He did most of our late night lab work. He also managed the team page of our wiki.

Abdul Hadi Abro

Abro, with his expertise in mathematics, was mainly responsible for mathematical modeling and simulation, and for writing content for the modeling page of the wiki. He also arranged Skype session with top scientists.

Muhammad Ismail

Ismail was the man behind our social media. Besides optimizing parts for our IDT order, he also designed our new parts for the registry. He played a key role in public outreach and in writing a lot of content for the wiki. Ismail also managed all our late night lab work; he helped us meet every deadline.

Maliha Mashkoor

Maliha, the only bioinformatician in our team with expertise in MATLAB, was responsible for mathematical modeling and simulation. She also helped write the modeling page of the wiki.

Mansoor Saleem

Mansoor was the critique: He identified our short comings on time. His main role was in modeling and public outreach.

Masoom Hussain

Masoom was responsible for collaborations. He provided all kind of resources the team needed. He was also involved in mathematical modelling and simulation.

Rabia Dawar

Rabia was our team photographer. She captured all the important and fun moments. Furthermore, she worked in the lab and contributed to Notebook page of our wiki.

Rayyan Tariq

Rayyan role is to optimize our lab protocols. He designed our surveys and wrote our policy paper. All the write up went through him for editing before uploading.

Sami Ullah

Sami was responsible for the Notebook and Team pages of our Wiki. He also managed the team blogs.

Sarah Farooq

Sarah used her artistic abilities well in the project. She was responsible for all the design work in our posters and presentations. She kept track of all the protocols we used and the troubleshooting we did in the lab. Furthermore, she kept our lab clean and tidy.

Sidra Usman

Sidra was responsible for the public engagement and attribution page of our wiki. Besides all the solutions and media preparations, she kept our lab clean.

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