“Crowdsourcing in wet labs
and with undergraduates”
Urmi Bajpai
Acharya Narendra Dev College
University of Delhi, India
Towards a New, Open Source Pharmaceutical Industry
Bellagio Center, July 2014
#opensourcepharma
About the research projects:
Building of repositories of genes (70 in
number, cloned in suitable plasmid
vector) and proteins (20) from Mbt and
of Mycobacteriophages
Students are trained in the similar set
of techniques to meet the project
objectives.
Infrastructure developed with the
grants enables the scale and quality of
Advantages of crowdsourcing
with the undergraduates.1. To ‘catch them young’
In the beginner's mind there are
many possibilities, in the expert's
there are few." --- Shunryu Suzuki
2.Engaging students in developing
products which have downstream
users.
Crowdsourcing Project-I
A Virtual Centre of Excellence for
Coordinated Research on Tuberculosis:
Development of alternate strategies. A
multi-institutional project.(2006-2009)
Funded by Department of Biotechnology,
Government of India.
Cloning of 50 genes of Mtb
Crowdsourcing Project-II
Cloning and expression of genes of
Mycobacterium tuberculosis: An OSDD
project. (2010-2012)
Funded by Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research (CSIR)
1 2 3 4 5 61 2 3 4 5 6
71 2 3 4 5
Crowdsourcing Project-III
Phage discovery research program: A
pilot project. Mycobacteriophages are virus
that infect Mycobacterium and can serve as
source for anti-Mtb molecules. Funded by
the college
Techniques:Designing of gene-specific primers
Agarose gel electrophoresis
PCR (Polymerase chain reaction)
Gel extraction of DNA
Restriction digestion and ligation of DNA
Isolation of plasmid DNA
Bacterial transformation
Screening of recombinants
Expression by induction, sonication
SDS-PAGE
Western Blotting
Affinity chromatography
In-silico analysis
Project on Mobile healthcare funded
by University of DelhiHOW MOBILE HEALTHCARE WORKS?
Open Medical Genetic
Diagnostics (OMG-D) June 2014
Aims to create a compendium of open-
access probes for diagnosis of rare
genetic disorders and genetic traits.
http://crowdomics.org/collab/groups/ope
n-medical-genetic-diagnostics/
Sridhar Sivabasu & Vinod Scaria (IGIB),
Urmi Bajpai
Wellness Genomics Project http://is.gd/100years
To understand the genetic factors which
contribute to healthy living.
The OSDD project helped me to gain the real in-lab experience and
develop the wet lab skill and attitude to tackle problems with patience.-Vivek Bharadwaj
The project told me what research is all about and helped a lot in building
the confidence to work independently.
-Ahilesh
Kumar
This project evoked an interest for research by exposing me to many
new techniques that induced in me curiosity to learn more, think more
and apply more and further motivated me to pursue a future in biological
sciences. -Amrita Singh
It made me confident enough to work independently and in a team also
but not relying upon others for my work. It taught us how to work in a
group with discipline. -Beneeta Kalha
Watching things happen,and understanding the principle behind
techniques by performing them made concepts clear and gave a
rational basis to our analytical skills. -Sweety Raj
Summary:
Number of students who have
participated so far: 150
A large percentage of the students get
motivated to study Life Science in
higher degree and pursue research as
a career option.
These projects are an excellent way
to put training hours in building
repositories, generating data and
gaining personal skills!
OSDD project II: Mtb Mur pathway
enzymes as multi-target therapy
A one-pot assay for six Mur enzymes purified
from Mtb for screening of new inhibitory
molecules is developed.
Thank you!