NU_Kazakhstan iGEM 2021 Team would like to express special appreciation and acknowledge the contributions of all who supported us throughout the project!
Research Support
We express our gratitude to Dr. Rahul Gauttam - Postdoctoral Fellow of Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for providing us with pRGPDuo2, pRGPDuo3 and pRGPDuo4 plasmid vectors that were determining the success of the project. He also provided us with informational support regarding the specificities of these plasmids.
School of Sciences and Humanities of Nazarbayev University, Department of Biology: We thank our school for providing us with necessary working spaces, laboratory facilities, equipment, consumables, and support from faculty. Moreover, we appreciate the gratuitous funding of our Registration and Giant Jamboree Participation Fees. Special thanks are attributed to the Acting Dean of the School of Sciences and Humanities Dr. Gonzalo Hortelano for assisting us in getting access to laboratories and helping with student accommodation matters. Without his assistance, our team would not have been able to continue with the project and withdraw from the competition. We also thank our Department Chair Dr. Christian Schoenbach for ensuring necessary supervision of the team’s activities, and the safety of our working conditions. Under his guidance, we received generous support from our Laboratory Coordinator Aigerim Tautanova that conducted safety sessions with us, prepared all the necessary materials, reagents, and equipment available from the Department, and assigned Teaching Assistants to help us. Special thanks to Doctoral Student Kayode Olaifa for his generous help and support in completing Wet Lab work.
We appreciate help from Dr. Dos Sarbassov, General Director of National Laboratory Astana, and his colleagues from Biocluster, including Dr. Vladimir Kiyan for providing us with necessary reagents and strains of Pseudomonas putida in times of urgent need. Since we had major obstacles with reagent logistics this year due to the pandemic, without the generous support from the research community of Nazarbayev University we could never succeed in our wet-lab experiments. Similarly, we express our gratitude to Dr. Aigerim Soltabayeva, Nazarbayev University Core Facilities (Aigul Kussanova and Mainur Karimova), and Dr. Nariman Batullin from ICG SB RAS, Russia, for their kind assistance in reagent supply as well.
Our Secondary Investigator, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, and the main supervisor of all wet-lab activities. The project idea was mainly proposed and outlined by him, and his extensive experience allowed us to attempt to turn the idea into reality. His guidance in our laboratory work allowed us to succeed in our experiments and learn new techniques.
Our Principal Investigator, Associate Professor of School of Engineering and Digital Sciences, and main point of contact with iGEM Headquarters. Regardless of hardships that were posed by the ongoing pandemic, Dr. Marsili has been very supportive of all our initiatives and provided us with necessary materials, covered expenses for reagents and consumables, and assisted in performing electrochemical experiments.
Master’s student at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and our team advisor. Daulet’s experience as iGEM Competition Alumni, ex-Ambassador, and Judge helped our team a lot since he gave us insightful information throughout the project development on how to meet medal criteria, comply with iGEM rules and policies, and make a distinguished iGEM project. He organized several workshops with our team on safety, engineering success, human integrated practices, and judging criteria; as well as was a welcome guest in our weekly team meetings.
Integrated Human Practices
Human Practices support
LLP "KMG Systems & Services", “Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, "KazEcoSolutions", Association of Regional Environmental Initiatives EcoJer, “Ecostandard.kz”, “Caspian Sea Support”, and Research and Production Center for Microbiology and Virology provided us valuable feedback to develop and adjust our project.
LLP "KMG Systems & Services"
- Sugurbekov Sherhan - General Director
- Kospayev Arman - Deputy General Director for production
- Ostpenko Yuriy - Chief Expert on Projects
- Kasimbekova Saltanat - Chief Manager for ecology
- Taskinbayev Iliyas - Business Development manager
LLP "KazEcoSolutions"
Special thanks to Olzhas Dyussenov, General Director of KazEcoSolutions for supporting our project and giving extensive feedback.
Association of Regional Environmental Initiatives EcoJer
Tursynova Gulzhan Alibekkyzy - Chief Specialist of the Department of Ecology
Inclusion and Accessibility
“Dara Foundation”
Anna Loyenko and Maral Shehembekova for guiding our project for improvement in terms of accessibility for people with visual and hearing impairments.
Ziyat Abdykaimov - Expert-manager at Assistive Technologies and Accessibility. Provided assistance and guidance on printing our posters for schools.
Speakers of Inclusion Talks
Kamila Rollan, Bibarys Seitak, Maulen Akhmetov for sharing valuable insights on integrating inclusion and accessibility in education, entrepreneurship, and social work.
Sultan Mussakhan - for his support and guidance in using our platform for raising awareness about Queer Youth in STEM, sharing his personal experience as a researcher and iGEMer.
Nazarbayev University Library and USM - for their gratuitous offer and help in printing special science journals in Braille script to be distributed among special-ed schools and libraries of Kazakhstan.
Informational Support
Kassiyet Adilbay - 11th grade student from NIS of Biology and Chemistry Department, who provided assistance with posting an article on Wikipedia platform about iGEM Competition both in Russian and Kazakh languages.
We thank informational partners for their support in the promotion of Science Summer Camp and for providing our participants with free consultation services: Smartestprep, Dixi School, iQanat, and special thanks to our guest speakers.
CODE-ON Participants
We thank everyone for bringing their expertise and experience around the table and engaging with others to solve presented tasks throughout 48 hours of our biohackathon. Their contribution to open science and developing tools for researchers to use was significant. Special thanks to teams who were involved in developing various tools to make web navigation more accessible for visually and/or hearing impaired individuals, as well as for neurodivergent people. Help received from participant Polina Len was helpful in integrating their proposed bio circuit design into our project.
General support
We thank Andrey Yershov (@androbaza) for shooting team pictures in a laboratory and filing our promotion video. Similarly, help from photographer Rikhat Akizhanov (@mr.rihat) in shooting pictures of all team members is appreciated.
We are also grateful for the support from Nazarbayev University Department of Student Services for providing us with coworking space, merchandise, and premium Zoom accounts for events.
TEAM MEMBERS
Administering and planning all NU_Kazakhstan iGEM 2021 Team activities on our project "Remi, du et!". Monitoring overall team progress, actively resolving internal and external problems, being a point of contact between Team, Supervisors, and iGEM HQ. Managing the team's resources, distributing funds, initiating new projects and overseeing those in progress, collaborating with administrative units, institutions, and stakeholders on behalf of the team. Applying for several grant programs and funding opportunities, raising 11000 USD for project development from sponsors.
Overseeing team activities related to Human Practices, Public Engagement, and publicity. Reaching out to internal and external organizations, including companies, government representatives, and administration, being a point of contact between key stakeholders and team. Developing the entrepreneurial potential of the project, applying for incubation and sponsorship programs.
WET LAB
Developing a research plan and grant proposal for a project, designing basic parts, and planning experiments. Curating laboratory activities, performing experiments, troubleshooting methodologies, and managing resource supply (reagents, raw materials). Made a significant contribution in promoting safety and good work ethic among team members, and was involved in lab skills training of less experienced members.
Aiding in developing research proposals as well as planning of necessary experiments. Was responsible for guiding wet lab members in conducting experiments along with the PI, adjusted lab work according to the unstable working schedule and conditions because of the pandemic, helped in Human Integrated Practices by consulting the team on technical aspects of the project. Translated and authored articles for local publications.
Outlined and preplanned necessary steps to be taken in case of experimental failure, optimized processes, helped in outlining necessary aspects to be considered for upscaled bioprocessing of the project. One of the main organizers of Summer Camp personally mentored participants and handled logistics of the goods delivery.
Gathering relevant literature and data from various academic papers on similar research that has been already done to locate and employ optimized and novel methods in the project development. Has also been involved in the commercialization of the project and outreach to companies, has negotiated with company representatives on cooperative work.
Performing laboratory experience and thoroughly diarizing all the data from wet lab team’s work for their successful integration to the dry lab team’s work. Adjusted and optimized input data to be analyzed and compiled final results.
Performed necessary experiments in the lab and contributed to developing optimized protocols for electroporation of Pseudomonas putida. Was responsible for ensuring integration of engineering cycles throughout the project development, diarization of laboratory activities, and keeping track of consumables. Has been involved in finalization of results and Data Analysis.
DRY LAB
Was mainly involved in the development of computational models for the project, contributed tasks for CODE-ON/2021, and was responsible for judging it. Helped with events logistics and was heavily involved in the development of Wiki.
Major contributor and developer of computational models and predictive simulations. Analyzed and interpreted laboratory data to build statistical models to make recommendations to improve operations efficiency. Management of Team Parts (Basic and Composite), including gathering of literature data, building 3D models, designing biological circuits. Was also actively engaged in the entrepreneurial aspect of the project and was one of the main pitchers in all project presentations.
She was mainly responsible for web design and technical maintenance of online platforms, was recognized for her contribution to the organization of CODE-ON/2021 and developing responsive websites. Helped with analysis of laboratory data and handling parts.
Mastermind of our Wiki and helping hand in Dry Lab work with MATLAB. Built an interactive Wiki from scratch and provided us with substantial coding support, trained team members in foundational HTML/CSS, developed and integrated specific libraries allowing accessibility of Wiki for people with visual impairments that were shared with other iGEM teams.
Planned and executed content plan calendar for the strong online presence of the team by designing necessary resources. One of the main co-authors of the Summer Camp guidebook and Inclusivity guidebook, and made a significant contribution in fostering collaborative work with other iGEM teams. Developed a cohesive and accessible design for all Wiki pages, and created the majority of necessary illustrations.
Has made significant contributions in adding new documentation and/or data to existing parts, assisted in documentation of the new parts. Tested their applicability in the lab. Was one of the main team representatives in meetings with external organizations and iGEM teams. Has made a tangible impact in fostering cooperation between us and our potential end-users. Handled transfer of data.
HUMAN PRACTICES
Human Practices member. Initiating and maintaining long-term professional cooperation with companies, stakeholders, and researchers. Quality design of educational posters in a colorblind-friendly palette; communication with other iGEM teams; aided in planning and organization of large-scale online events; assisted in the development of a creative vision of our project.
Curating collaborative work with other iGEM teams, developed a cohesive plan for engaging people, increasing outreach, and expanding public coverage of the project by managing external communications and online presence of the project. Main contributor in making “Remi, du et!” more inclusive with proposition of internal and external initiatives.
Assisting with Human Integrated Practice tasks and dry lab tasks; translation of educational materials, responsible for the activities involving Science Communication, Education and Public Engagement. Conducted assessments, plan and implement the team’s language inclusivity outreach programs, mentored participants of Summer Camp, and helped with the analysis of lab results to achieve proof of concept.
Working on the organization of CODE-ON/2021 and Summer Camp by providing technical support and maintenance of online platforms used by the team. Contributed to the promotion of inclusivity, and aided Dry Lab team in developing a responsive Wiki website.
Organized meetings with experts and helped in collaboration projects with other iGEM projects. Was responsible for logistics of Posters Project and CODE-ON/2021. Created content to be published on the team's social media accounts.
