“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!