Team:Lambert GA/Attributions
ATTRIBUTIONS
PROJECT FOUNDATION
Lambert iGEM's 2021 project, AgroSENSE, is a continuation of the Lambert iGEM 2020 project.
Lambert iGEM’s 2020 project, AgroSENSE, was inspired by a variety of experts in the hydroponics/aquaponics field. Hearing about timely, expensive, and often inaccurate methods of detecting nutrient levels faced by aquaponics farmers, the team had a goal of characterizing and improving upon a set of nutrient biosensors - specifically phosphate and nitrate. Lambert iGEM also utilized modular hardware to monitor environmental conditions for hydroponics systems. Furthermore, the team improved a previous frugal fluorometry device and app, FluoroCents, to create Fluoro-Q, another frugal fluorometer based upon image analysis.
With the goal of improving the characterization of the phosphate biosensor and implementing the nitrate biosensor, Lambert iGEM decided to continue AgroSENSE for the 2021 competition year. We further explored the safety issues associated with the distribution of biosensors, as well as regulation centered around synthetic biology leading us to work with the Georgia Department of Agriculture to draft a proposal for bioengineered protocols and products in agriculture.
RESEARCH AND CONTRIBUTION
| Shivaek Venkateswaran PPB | Sahana Narayanan Pho | Human Practices | Marketing | Video | Jenny Nah PPB | Human Practices | Aryan Singh PPB | Modeling | Edgar Robitaille Wiki | PPB | Lyophilizer | Andrew Bae PPB |
| Samhitha Yeleti Human Practices | Alice Hou PPB | Modeling | Marketing | Manasvi Gupta Pho | Human Practices | Video | Richard Jiang PPB | Zoya Mir Video | Human Practices | Marketing | Video | Monica Cho Wiki | Pho | PPB |
| Regina Ooms Human Practices | Michelle Jing PPB | Marketing | Sachintha Ashok Nar | Vineeth Sendilraj Lyophilizer | Wiki | PPB | Melanie Kim Modeling | Kathy Ye Nar | Video |
| Madhav Gulati Plate Reader | Wiki | Neha Lingam Video | Human Practices | Marketing | Aditya Prabhakar Video | Lyophilizer | Saif Khan Video | Nar | Human Practices | Sishnukeshav Balamurali PPB | Hari Mudigonda Wiki | PPB | Video |
| Hannah Noh Human Practices | Video | Pranav Kanthala PPB | Varun Sendilraj Plate Reader | Stan Lee Wiki | Lyophilizer | Dr. Brittney Cantrell | Mrs. Janet Standeven |
EXPERTS
Hydroponics System
Michael Choi: Michael Choi generously donated a hydroponics system in 2020 to Lambert iGEM, as well as providing ongoing support troubleshooting algae growth, water leaks, and plant seeds.
Frugal Lyophilizer and Plate Reader
Dr. Saad Bhamla - Bhamla Lab, Georgia Institute of Technology:
Dr. Bhamla held biweekly meetings to guide our Lyophilizer and Plate Reader teams to improve the designs and provide constructive feedback on our work in 2020 and 2021.
Dr. Matthew Brewer - Professor, Georgia State University:
Dr. Brewer serves as the advisor for the GSU iGEM team who conducted tests with our frugal lyophilizer. They provided feedback on our prototype which led us to improve our protocols for other users.
Dr. Chinna Devarapu - Professor, Postdoctoral Researcher, Tyndall International Institute:
Dr. Devarapu’s continued feedback led us to modify our plate reader design based on light distribution and camera position, making the device more effective in fluorescence quantification. He helped our team coalesce ideas from multiple previous designs into a novel approach.
Rajas Poorna - PhD Student, Georgia Institute of Technology:
Mr. Poorna led troubleshooting sessions that helped us solve issues such as air leakage on our lyophilizer, Optical Density, as well as fluorescence calculations on the plate reader, guiding us towards redesigning the system.
Human Practices
Dr. Bhabesh Dutta - Vegetable Disease Specialist, University of Georgia:
Dr. Dutta conveyed the consequences of Fusarium oxysporum in the agricultural field. He also informed us that our plant pathogen biosensors have the potential to positively impact many commercial farms that are impacted by plant pathogens. His feedback led us to narrow our focus to design a riboregulated toehold switch to detect the presence of Fusarium DNA in hydroponic systems.
Mr. Clint Crowe - Sweetwater Urban Farms:
Mr. Crowe was instrumental in the progress of our project this year. He allowed us to visit the Sweetwater facility multiple times where we were able to obtain water samples and observe the prevalence and impact of the root rot Phytophthora cryptogea in tower farms. Visiting a commercial facility gave us valuable insight into the economics, sustainability, and viability of urban hydroponic systems. Mr. Crowe also provided feedback to our implementation team on the practicality of performing molecular based assays in the field as well as numerical data for our disease predictive model.
Megan Heaphy and Kristen Boscan - Rural Teacher Training Initiative, Georgia BioEd Institute:
Kristen Boscan, Director, and Megan Heaphy, Project Coordinator, worked with our team over the course of the year on topics related to survey development, science communication, standards alignment, and networking with life science professionals and educational initiatives.
Lambert Smart Agriculture Club -
Helped our team gather water samples for our experiments from their in-school hydroponic systems. Also maintained our hydroponic system on a regular basis.
Regulation
Gary Black - Commissioner of Agriculture, Georgia Department of Agriculture:
Commissioner Black and his office made themselves available for multiple conversations and ongoing help. In one of our initial discussions with Commissioner Black he mentioned that there were no current legislative or regulatory frameworks concerning the use of biosensors in agricultural settings. Recognizing this gap, he helped network us with other Georgia State officials to research and develop appropriate action items.
In addition, he provided pertinent information on the state of agriculture, economic impact of hydroponics, and potential future growth of the industry.
Natalie Adan - Food Safety Division, Georgia Department of Agriculture:
Ms. Adan informed us that biosensors are an emerging innovation in agriculture, and therefore, have limited governmental barriers regarding their safe distribution. She helped us consider different methods to target this gap and helped us develop our initial legislative proposal.
Ashley Haltom - Vice President of Governmental Affairs, Georgia BioEd Institute:
Ms. Haltom connected us with Chairman Todd Jones to further our legislative proposal. She also guided us through the process of developing a regulatory outline that mirrors established Georgian agricultural regulations.
Chairman Todd Jones - Representative, Georgia House of Representatives:
Chairman Jones encouraged our team to create a regulation rather than a regulation for biosensors to allow for smooth updates to the piece following technological developments.
Phosphate Biosensor
Dr. Mark Styczynski - Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology:
Dr. Styczynski provided us with wet lab guidance throughout our project,which helped us lower our phosphate concentration ranges, resulting in refined characterization data.
Yan Zhang - Styczynski Research Group, Georgia Institute of Technology:
Ms. Zhang assisted us with obtaining the proper reagents for our phosphate biosensor characterization. She also helped us work on our protocol and adjust our phosphate solution ranges for the experimentation of our phosphate biosensor.
Elizabeth Chilton - Styczynski Research Group, Georgia Institute of Technology:
Ms. Chilton provided us with proper reagents for characterization, ongoing feedback and support.
Dr. Ichiro Matsumara - Professor, Emory University:
Dr. Matsumara helped us alter our phosphate biosensor by changing the way we tested the data. He instructed us to discontinue working with the Pho A promoter sequence, and helped us improve our concentration ranges.
Nitrate Biosensor and Cell-free
Megan McSweeney - Graduate Student, Styczinski Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology:
Ms. McSweeny gave us advice on how to improve our lysate preparation by visiting our lab and helped us troubleshoot our experimental testing. She lent us several reagents to use for our cell-free experiments, as well as providing ongoing support and troubleshooting.
Dr. Adam Silverman - Researcher, Sherlock Biosciences
Dr. Silverman introduced us to cell-free protein synthesis by providing his publications and protocols. He guided us through preparing enriched lysates, as well providing continuous feedback to improve our extraction performance. In addition, he shared test plasmids for us to test our initial lysates.
Plant Pathogen Biosensors
Dr. Rajesh Paul - Researcher, North Carolina State University:
Dr. Paul elaborated upon the concept of microneedle patches and how to apply them to extract DNA from pathogens on plant roots. He also introduced alternatives to microneedle patches and gave us the idea of grinding roots, which ultimately led to our sink strainer extraction protocol.
Megan McSweeney - Graduate Student, Styczinski Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology:
Ms. McSweeney taught the team how to use NUPACK software for our pathogen toehold designs.
Model
Dr. Mark Styczynski
Dr. Styczynski provided online databases for rate constants and suggested that protein abundances were likely not necessary for constructing the model.
Megan McSweeney and Yue Han Graduate Student, Styczinski Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology:
Ms. McSweeney and Ms. Han assisted us with parameter estimations on MATLAB.
Financial Sponsors
iGEM Team Impact Grant
Christine Kurihara:
Christine Kurihara sponsored our foldscope lab kit donation to Cameroon.
Dr. Gary Davison:
Dr. Davison sponsored our foldscope lab kit donation to Cameroon.
SPONSORS
