Difference between revisions of "Team:IIT-Madras/Human Practices"

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= [[Team:IIT-Madras/Engagement|Public Engagement]] =
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= HP Silver =
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Our country, India has been progressively adopting GM crops, which has led to a heated debate in our country. This prompted us to investigate GMO related issues by reaching out to its stakeholders, the general public (consumers and farmers), NGOs and regulatory authorities.
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====== [[Team:IIT-Madras/HP/Silver|Read more ..]] ======
  
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== GMO in India ==
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= HP Gold =
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Once we had finished the survey, we realised we needed the opinion of the other stakeholders in the GMO debate:regulatory authorities and NGOs. We believe an informed decision can be made only when everyone is heard, and their views carefully contemplated. We proceeded to perform Education and Public Outreach based on the knowledge we gained from the survey and interviews.
  
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== Survey ==
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===== [[Team:IIT-Madras/HP/Gold|Read more ..]] =====
  
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You can view the survey questionnaire [[https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2016/b/b3/Iitmsuvey.pdf|here]].
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= Education & Public Engagement =
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Our country, India has been progressively adopting GM crops, which has led to a heated debate in our country. This prompted us to investigate GMO related issues by reaching out to it's stakeholders, general public (consumers and farmers), NGOs and regulatory authorities. We conducted a survey among undergraduates, graduates and professors (330 responses) of colleges in four states of India. We interviewed two highly vocal NGOs, Gene Campaign & ASHA, and two members of GMO related decision making government body. To educate farmers about GM crops and its implications, we prepared a write-up in their local languages, and circulated it among farmers using social media. In order to spread awareness in public sphere about Synthetic Biology, we made a mobile game 'Codonut' (released on the App Store and the Google Play store) to educate players about the concept of codon bias. We also organised an interactive synthetic biology session for students in a high school near our campus and primary school students in a village in Maharashtra.
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===== [[Team:IIT-Madras/Engagement|Read more ..]] =====
  
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== Interviewing NGOs ==
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== Codonut-a game ==
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[[File:0x0ss.jpg|right|250px]]
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We were fascinated by the concept of codon bias, which forms the basis for the modelling aspect of our project. We wondered if we could teach this concept with the help of a fun mobile game. We believe games can truly help people of all ages understand core concepts underlying day to day phenomena in a lasting way. This was how the game was born.
  
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== Interviewing regulatory authorities ==
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In the game, the player guides the ribosome character by tapping on the screen(thus lifting him up). The player must not hit the upper or lower bounds of the playing area(represented by the lipid bilayer). As an analogy to codon bias, we decided to use donuts, with ribosome preferring chocolate donuts above all others(who doesn't love chocolate?). If you have yet to play the game, you can download it on the [http://www.appstore.com/Codonut App Store] or [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.igemiitm.codonut Play Store].
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== Educating Farmers ==
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===== [[Team:IIT-Madras/codonut|Read more...]] =====
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== Educating school students ==
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To expand the synthetic biology community, we believed it’s necessary to create interest in the fundamental stage itself. We went to a school in our locality and interacted with our fellow student community in 12th grade. They all had their major as biology but still they were overwhelmed to know that they can engineer life!
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We started with the very basic of DNA, as a source of information written in the language of cells which has only four letters and went to central dogma with proteins as meaning of the words created by those letters. Several analogies made by us like ‘RNA as a  photocopy of a particular page in a book’ made them understand well about the concepts. After this we went on to restriction enzymes which cut at palindromic sequences.
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We made a simple activity to make them understand a palindromic sequence. A set of letters were given (say ‘AGACTT’) and the teams were asked to come up with as many palindromic sequences as they can with those letters. Many teams came up with many answers but actually one found out that it is just a simple math! With this we made sure that they understood the basics of complementary base pairing and reverse complementary matching in palindromic sequences.
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Atlast the students were told what synthetic biologists are capable of and were asked to come up with some fun applications. We found our future IGEMers as their answers really amused us like glowing roadside trees, toxin detection using fluorescence and many more!
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An awareness drive was conducted at the local Government school of Hasampura, a small village in the district Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, India. Almost all the students of the school came from families with farming and agriculture background. The students were made aware of the importance of science in their life and how crucial it can be when GM crops are introduced at a large scale in the agricultural fields. Various parameters were discussed with them which included the quantity of GM seeds, amount of manure and fertiliser used, nutritional value, cost calculations, insecticides and pesticides usage etc, which were then compared with the conventional technology currently used. Various governmental policies regarding GM crops were also discussed. The students responded well and conveyed the message to their parents. In this way, we were able to spread awareness about the importance of GM crops and how can it revolutionize their lives.
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== [[Team:IIT-Madras/codonut|Codonut-a game]] ==
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[[Team:IIT-Madras/codonut|Read more...]]  
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= [[Team:IIT-Madras/Safety|Safety]] =
 
= [[Team:IIT-Madras/Safety|Safety]] =
 
Experiments were conducted in the undergraduate lab of the Dept. Of Biotechnology at IIT Madras. The lab conforms to the standards for a Bio-safety level 1 lab according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,Atlanta. Most members of our lab team also have had extensive wet lab experience previously.  
 
Experiments were conducted in the undergraduate lab of the Dept. Of Biotechnology at IIT Madras. The lab conforms to the standards for a Bio-safety level 1 lab according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,Atlanta. Most members of our lab team also have had extensive wet lab experience previously.  
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[[Team:IIT-Madras/Safety|Read more...]]  
 
[[Team:IIT-Madras/Safety|Read more...]]  
  
 
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Latest revision as of 18:56, 19 October 2016

HP Silver

Our country, India has been progressively adopting GM crops, which has led to a heated debate in our country. This prompted us to investigate GMO related issues by reaching out to its stakeholders, the general public (consumers and farmers), NGOs and regulatory authorities.

Read more ..

HP Gold

Once we had finished the survey, we realised we needed the opinion of the other stakeholders in the GMO debate:regulatory authorities and NGOs. We believe an informed decision can be made only when everyone is heard, and their views carefully contemplated. We proceeded to perform Education and Public Outreach based on the knowledge we gained from the survey and interviews.

Read more ..

Education & Public Engagement

Our country, India has been progressively adopting GM crops, which has led to a heated debate in our country. This prompted us to investigate GMO related issues by reaching out to it's stakeholders, general public (consumers and farmers), NGOs and regulatory authorities. We conducted a survey among undergraduates, graduates and professors (330 responses) of colleges in four states of India. We interviewed two highly vocal NGOs, Gene Campaign & ASHA, and two members of GMO related decision making government body. To educate farmers about GM crops and its implications, we prepared a write-up in their local languages, and circulated it among farmers using social media. In order to spread awareness in public sphere about Synthetic Biology, we made a mobile game 'Codonut' (released on the App Store and the Google Play store) to educate players about the concept of codon bias. We also organised an interactive synthetic biology session for students in a high school near our campus and primary school students in a village in Maharashtra.

Read more ..

Codonut-a game

0x0ss.jpg

We were fascinated by the concept of codon bias, which forms the basis for the modelling aspect of our project. We wondered if we could teach this concept with the help of a fun mobile game. We believe games can truly help people of all ages understand core concepts underlying day to day phenomena in a lasting way. This was how the game was born.

In the game, the player guides the ribosome character by tapping on the screen(thus lifting him up). The player must not hit the upper or lower bounds of the playing area(represented by the lipid bilayer). As an analogy to codon bias, we decided to use donuts, with ribosome preferring chocolate donuts above all others(who doesn't love chocolate?). If you have yet to play the game, you can download it on the [http://www.appstore.com/Codonut App Store] or Play Store.

Read more...

Safety

Experiments were conducted in the undergraduate lab of the Dept. Of Biotechnology at IIT Madras. The lab conforms to the standards for a Bio-safety level 1 lab according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,Atlanta. Most members of our lab team also have had extensive wet lab experience previously. Read more...