Summary
We met with top government officials in the state's biotechnology department to tell them about our project. The use of Ag43 to clarify cultures and replace centrifugation is a novel procedure and we will apply for a patent on the same once preliminary experimental results concerning the same. We received ~$9,000 towards our project from the state government's biotechnology department.
We also received ~ $15,000, the maximum prize money from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India as our proposal was one of the winners of the Indian Bioengineering Competition (iBEC), a pre-iGEM competition to provide financial support for Indian iGEM teams.
We also received funding of ~ $5,000 from our institution's undergraduate department towards the team registration for iGEM. This we felt was a triumph as it is our institution's first time participating in the iGEM competition and the funds were provided only when our idea was approved by the dean.