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Kalpana
Written by: Ipsa Bezbarua, Arya Narnapatti and Anish Mulchandani
Illustrated by: doodlesane
Episodes
Episode 1
In the first episode we give a basic background to the greenhouse effect and the seriousness of the impact of increasing carbon dioxide levels to living organisms on earth. We introduce the protagonist of our story - Kalpana, a synthetic biologist and her tragic backstory that prompts her to try and use synthetic biology to fight climate change.
Episode 2
In the second episode we introduce synthetic biology and its basic motivations through the voice of Kalpana’s late father, who was a scientist himself. Read to learn about what synthetic biology is alongside a young Kalpana, beginning from the basics of how every living creature is made of cells controlled by DNA.
Episode 3
In the third episode we introduce the basic idea behind "SynBactory" with the help of two new characters- E coli and Cyano. Kalpana overhears these characters talking about how each of them can individually help combat climate change and realizes how great of an idea it would be to make the two work side by side.
About Us
We are the iGEM team from IISER-Pune India for the year 2021. This year we are working on a project called "SynBactory".
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The iGEM competition is an annual, international synthetic biology competition for student teams from around the world to try and use synthetic biology to solve real world problems. Out project "SynBactory" aims to create a sustainable bio-manufacturing process using bacteria! Photosynthetic cyanobacteria can take up atmospheric carbon dioxide (that is a major cause of climate change) to produce sucrose. E coli can use this sucrose to make all sorts of useful chemicals for us humans, including butanol - a bio-fuel! Together, we hope to make them into a sustainable bio-manufacturing unit.
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Read our comic to learn more about our project, climate change and the field of synthetic biology. To read up more about the science behind our idea, visit our wiki here.
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The comic was illustrated by doodlesane. Visit their Instagram here.